Barbara Sparti, Rome, Italy:

Barbara Sparti is a dance historian specialized in 15th-17th century Italian dance who has performed and choreographed period works for theatre and opera. She founded and directed the Gruppo di Danza Rinascimentale between 1975-88. Distinguished Visiting Professor at University of California at Los Angeles, she has been guest lecturer-choreogra­pher in Princeton and Israel.  Besides her edition-translation of Guglielmo Ebreo's 1463 dance treatise, and her Introduction to the facsimile edition of Santucci’s 1614 dance treatise, recent publications deal with style and aesthetics, improvisation and ornamentation, socio-economic and political contexts, dance music, Jewish dancing-masters, dance iconography, the moresca, and Italian baroque dance. She edited, with J. Van Zile, Imaging Dance: Visual Representations of Dancers and Dancing (2011) and received in the same year a collection of essays in her honour: Virtute et Arte del Danzare, ed. Alessan­dro Pontremoli.