Fabritio Caroso

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Fabritio Caroso

Fabritio caroso (da Sermoneta) (* 1526 / 1535 in Sermoneta , † 1605 / 1620 ), Italian dancing master of the Renaissance of two and author of extensive dance treatises . Due to a misinterpretation of the title knife, he was incorrectly referred to as Mario Fabritio Caroso or, in modernized spelling, Mario Fabrizio Caroso.

Little is known about Fabritio Caroso's life. Information on his biography can only be read indirectly from information in his two treatises, in particular from the dance dedications. Caroso was born in Sermoneta ( Latium ) between 1525 and 1535 . There he was probably a student of M [esser] Battistino. Some of the choreographies from Il Ballarino , ascribed to Battistino , are dedicated to the Caetani family , lords of Sermoneta.

Based on numerous dedications for members of the Orsini family and Roman noble ladies, an initial activity in Rome and the surrounding area can be derived. Towards the end of the 1570s he was likely to have been increasingly active in the Medici sphere of influence in Tuscany . As the changed title in the two tracts shows, Caroso was raised from the knife (M. Fabritio Caroso) to Signore (Sig. Fabritio Caroso). This is likely to be related to the dance dedications to members of the Caetani family.

Next step descriptions and general rules of conduct his two works contain a total of 131 choreographies of social dances of his time at which the music sounds - tablature is noted. Together with the treatises by Cesare Negri , his two treatises give an extensive and detailed idea of courtly social and stage dance in Italy in the second half of the 16th century.

Caroso's first treatise Il Ballarino (Venice, 1581) is dedicated to Bianca Cappello . This was a dazzling figure in Florence . She died under mysterious circumstances shortly after her husband Francesco I de 'Medici , the Grand Duke of Tuscany, died after a hunting accident in their preferred residence, the villa in Poggio a Caiano . With his death and the subsequent takeover of rule by his brother Ferdinando I de 'Medici , Caroso's career at the Medici court may have come to an end. Many of the artists working under Francesco were dismissed and replaced by new ones who had been committed to Florence with Ferdinando from Rome.

The dedication of the second treatise Nobiltà di Dame to Don Ranuccio Farnese , Duke of Parma and Piacenza , suggests that Caroso was looking for a new field of activity there. With the printing of his second treatise, however, the trace to his person is also lost. Date and place of death are unknown.

Caroso's Il Ballarino contains 81 choreographies. With a few exceptions, all dances have a title and the assignment to a certain genre and the name of the respective dedicatee. A basic distinction must be made between open and closed dance forms. The closed dance forms include the balletto and the cascarda . All the steps for a particular choreography are precisely prescribed here. In the open dance forms, such as Canario , Gagliarda , Tordiglione and Passamezzo , a larger reservoir of steps and step sequences is available, which can be used improvising within a given framework. Other dance forms in Caroso's work include the Spagnoletta and Villanella .

The choreographies in Il Ballarino are arranged hierarchically. The dances for the most senior women (Serenissima et Illustrissima Signora, Illustrissima Sig.a) are at the beginning of the treatise and are each supplemented with a picture. This is followed by the dances for the lower-ranking women (Illustra Sig.a, Gentildonna). The music here is only notated in lute tablature and has no additional soprano voice in mensural notation.

Works and editions

  • Il Ballarino , Venice 1581; Facsimile: Tree Edition, Lübeck 2009
    • Adalbert Quadt : Lute music from the Renaissance. According to tablature ed. by Adalbert Quadt. Volume 1 ff. Deutscher Verlag für Musik, Leipzig 1967 ff .; 4th edition, ibid. 1968, Volume 2, pp. 17-19 ( 5 ballettos from Il Ballarino , transcribed from the Italian tablature in musical notation).
  • Nobiltà di Dame , Venice 1600, ( 2 1605); (= Raccolta di varij Balli , Rome 1630).

literature

  • Michael Malkiewicz: Fabritio Caroso: Il Ballarino (Venetia 1581) - Studies on the life and work of a dance master of the 16th century. 2 volumes, dissertation, mschr., Univ. Salzburg 2001.
  • Julia Sutton:  Caroso, Fabritio. In: Grove Music Online (English; subscription required).

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