An architect at the service of the dance: Cesare Carlo Scaletta and his book
(Letizia Dradi)
Choregraphie ò vero l'arte di descrivere i balli per caratteri figure e segni demostrativi. Per mezzo dei quali si puol facilmente apprendere da se medemo tutte le sorte di Balli. Opera utilissima ai Maestri di Ballo, e a tutte le Persone che vogliono applicarsi al ballare. Opera di M. Feuillet maestro di ballo tradotta dal Francese in Italiano e presentata a Madama la Marchesa Donna Catterina Obizzi Calcagnini. Da Carlo Cesare Scaletta Patrizio Faentino. Faenza 24 ottobre 1717.
This manuscript, held at the Newberry Library in Chicago, is the translation in Italian language of the Chorégraphie ou l'art de décrire la danse by Raoul Auger Feuillet published in Paris in 1700.
The italian translator isn't a dancing master but a man of culture who dedicated this book to the Marchesa Caterina Obizzi Calcagnini, daughter of Tommaso Obizzi Marquis of Orciano and Alessandra Pecori a Florentine Countess. The Marchesa Obizzi was a well cultured woman and a poetess. Cesare Carlo Scaletta, also a nobleman from Faenza, lived between 1666 and 1744. He attended the University in Bologna studying mathematics and architecture. His translation is very precise and corresponds to the French edition. Unfortunately only two choreographies conclude the translation, both copied from the Chorégraphie by R.A. Feuillet. They are an Entrata a due the Entrée à deux for two men and the famous courtly dance La Bourgogne for a couple.
Just one year before the completion of the manuscript Caterina married the Marquis Carlo Cesare Calcagnini from Fusignano and to celebrate the wedding Ippolito Zanelli composes a collection of Canzoni and an opera, the Clizia, a pastoral scene performed as introduction to the Ballo delle Dame e dei Cavalieri, music composed by Antonio Toschi from Ferrara. The dance was practiced by the nobles on festive occasions and the translations by Cesare Carlo Scaletta confirms the presence and the spread of the French style in Italy ten years before the Gian Batista Dufort's Trattato del Ballo Nobile published in Napoli in 1728.
Letizia Dradi, Mailand, Italien:
Dancer and choreographer she began studying ancient dance in 1992. She studied Musical Paleography and Philology at the University of Cremona. She choreographed and danced in Europe, Asia and America with severals early music groups as La Petite Bande S. Kujiken, Le Concert des Nations J. Savall, Dowland Consort of J. Lindberg and Norsk Barokkorkester Oslo. She has presented his researchs at the Society of Dance History Scholars (United States), Dolmetsch Historical Dance Society (London), Vaganova Academy (Russia). She is very active in teaching dance from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century in the Conservatives and Music Schools.
