To attempt to repeat the Bergonzio de Botta entertainment would have been to invite comparisons; to surpass it in any point but magnitude would have been excessively difficult. Its influence on entertainments that followed directed itself toward the development of the masque, a form of musical pantomime that remained, through centuries, an indispensable adjunct of festal gatherings in the courts of the Continent and England. The characters in the De Botta production, it will be noted, were, with two or three exceptions, from Greek mythology. This was the culmination of a fashion that had been growing, and is fairly representative of the revival of learning then in progress. It was not until a few years ago that familiarity with classic tradition ceased to be considered a part of the education of a lady or gentleman. There is no reason to believe that the lack of such erudition makes one the less a lady or a gentleman; but its discontinuance is unfortunate for the pantomime ballet. In Greek mythology, both natural manifestations and mental attributes were personified. Not with the completeness of a catalogue, but enough to express a great many points by the mere presence of certain characters. Venus, Minerva, Diana; Dionysius, Orpheus, Apollo, Mercury—all were accepted symbols of certain human qualities. In relegating their acquaintance to the depository of cast-off mental furniture, people have failed to create new symbols to take the place of the old. Harlequin and Columbine we have, and a few others. But how many are the figures whose mere entrance, without the interruption of dramatic action, could be depended upon to introduce definite and recognisable ideas? Pantomime has to be explained on the programme nowadays; and as nobody gets to his seat until after the auditorium lights are down, the programme is unread and people complain that the characters lack meaning. Broadly, Modernism has devised for itself an education that teaches it to earn each day the cost of a thousand pleasures, but by which it is robbed of the power to enjoy any one of them.
Scattered through mediæval choreographic history are allusions to an employment of chivalry as subject-matter of pantomime. But the idea never seems to have taken root, as is natural enough, considering the relation between dancing and armour—and armour was worn by the unfortunate dancers chosen to represent knights. The dance of chivalry was not an influence, and is mentioned only as a choreographic curiosity.
Bergonzio de Botta’s great entertainment, as has been shown, led squarely up to the masque, one of the ballet’s immediate forerunners. Meantime the Church’s contribution to the art was no longer a matter of moralities for the edification of mediæval rustics; high dignitaries, proceeding partly under ecclesiastical inspiration and partly under tolerance, were evolving a choro-dramatic form that took no second place to the masque in preparing the way for the art that was to come. Sixteenth-century Rome and Florence saw “sacred representations” in which were utilised the Saltarello [see chapter on Italian dances], the Pavane, the Siciliana, la Gigue, the Gaillarde and la Moresca. The last was accompanied by heel-tappings, like many of the dances of Spain to-day. Its music survives in Monteverde’s opera Orfeo, written at the beginning of the seventeenth century; in other words, music was beginning to be worth while. More important than any other single acquisition, to say the least, was the alliance of some of the monarchs of form and colour to whom half the glory of the Renaissance is due. Of Ariosto’s Suppositi, presented in the Vatican in 1518, the decorations were by Raphael. Andrea del Sarto, Brunelleschi and Cecca enriched with their sacred figures the mimo-dramas played in Florence. In Milan, Leonardo da Vinci lent to the reality and beauty of the religious ballet the palette from which was painted the “Mona Lisa.” Furthermore, it is not to be supposed that these and other masters of line, colour and the drama of light were not called to the aid of ballet grouping and movement. The period leaves no record of a great ballet composer or director. It does leave reason to believe, nevertheless, that in grouping and evolution, as well as decoration, music and accessories, these sacred representations lacked nothing to entitle them to a respectable place in the annals of opera ballet. Steps were still primitive, but sufficient unto their day.
Authorities disagree as to which one of several performances is entitled to the recognition due the first presentation of modern ballet. As a matter of accuracy, any decision should be made only after considering exactly which of several species of modern ballet is meant. For the organisation of the first ballet spectacle conforming to the multiple standards of modern excellence, the honour seems to be deserved by Catherine de Medici. True to her family traditions, she took it as an expression of beauty for its own sake, and developed it in accordance with French genius for order and form, as is described in later pages. But the first production of opera ballet, in the sense of a divertissement or intermezzo composed to interpret sentiments of dramatic action that it precedes or follows, the consensus of authority attributes to a work of Cardinal Riario, a nephew of Pope Sixtus IV. He composed and staged in Castel San Angelo a number of productions in which the ballet was important, during the latter part of the fifteenth century. Besides Pope Sixtus IV, Alexander VI and Leo X were strongly in sympathy with the movement to exalt choreography to its ancient and proper estate. The educated aristocracy of various Italian cities gave it support and protection. Important among these champions was Lorenzo de Medici, with his rare combination of means and scholarly understanding of the arts. Savonarola acidly charged him with softening the people by means of pagan spectacles, while Lorenzo went on adapting and composing.
The Jewish element of Italian society contributed its part to the new art’s development. At Mantua, where the Jews formed a numerous colony, they built a theatre on the models of antiquity. Productions were directed by Bernard Tasso, father of the author of Jerusalem Delivered. Torquato himself went in 1573 to produce La Pastorale, which was a feature of a celebration given on the Island of the Belvidere, near Ferrara.
The ballet entertainment was fashionable; no great event was complete without it as a supplement. The visit of the Duke of Anjou (the future Henry III) to Cracow was the occasion of a fête whose historic importance was the discovery of a genius in ballet arrangement, Baltarazini, otherwise known as Beaujoyeulx. Catherine de Medici sent for him to take charge of the choreographic entertainments of the French court, the Marshal de Brissac acting as intermediary. “Baltarazini dit Beaujoyeulx” had his first great opportunity in 1581, on the occasion of the marriage of the Duc de Joyeuse. Le Ballet Comique de la Reine was the designation of the offering; it was an addition to the now growing list of tremendous successes. Full details are recorded in the journal of one L’Estoile, and in L’Art de la Danse by Jean Etienne Despréaux. To repeat them in full is neither necessary nor possible: the amiable L’Estoile in particular experiences all the delight of a simple soul surrounded by several days’ proceedings of which not a single detail is anything less than amazing. The lords and ladies appeared in a fresh costume every day, a new practice of whose extravagance L’Estoile writes with a mixture of awe and disapproval.
