{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.026790595954073265, 'fraction_numerical': 0.004373974849644614, 'mean_word_length': 5.46643109540636, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Dance History Research in Italy

The book under review, Flavia Pappacena’s The Language of Classical Ballet: Guide to the Interpretation of Iconographic Sources, was produced simultaneously in Italian, French, and English (all in 2012) with the intent of addressing for a general audience how to interpret iconography specifically as it relates to classical ballet in France and Italy. Given that one of Italy’s most visible dance aestheticians produced this work, we find that such an interpretive guide deserves to be evaluated in the context of dance history as an evolving field in il bel paese. As captured in extant art, dance in the Italian peninsula has enjoyed an exceptionally long and rich history. Indeed, scholars can document the history of dancing in Italy as far back as the Etruscans, whose civilization left bronzes, funeral murals, and bas-reliefs on sarcophagi that record various dance poses and gestures. Furthermore, in the case of Etruscan civilization, such artifacts often document the musical instruments that accompanied ritual dances and showcase the presumed joy dance will bring in the afterlife. Similarly, from the Greco-Roman period through medieval caroles and dances of death, Renaissance galliards and bassedanses, eighteenth-century performances by grotteschi, commedia dell’arte–inspired pantomimes, neoclassical minuets, and balli romantici, not to mention Luigi Manzotti’s grand spectacles, a plethora of artistic work survives and testifies to the variety of roles that dance has played in Italian society prior to World War I. These objets d’art range from sculptures to miniatures and paintings, from illustrated treatises to separately printed engravings, from lithographs to photographs, and, from the start of the twentieth century, films, such as Luca Comerio’s Excelsior (1913). ∗