Criticism, literary
Theoretical discussion of the nature, kinds, and purpose of literature (as opposed to "practical" or applied criticism or guides to technique) originated and attained most sophistication in Italy. The common assumption in Renaissance criticism, as in the neoclassicism which succeeded it, was that literature imparted knowledge or truths. This view was usually stated in the Hora-tian formulation, that poetry combined delight and instruction, dulce et utile, these functions being taken rather simply and distinctly, with scant attention to their possible interactions.
In the first part of the 15th century in Italy, the recovery of classical authors, the cultivation of Latin style, and the role of classical rhetoric in the humanist conception of the active, public life produced the ideal of a poet-orator, emulating the ancients and bringing honor to his city and himself. By the end of the century, vernacular literature was thriving and soon reached full maturity. Systematic criticism developed in the course of the 16th century, stimulated by the publication of aristotle’s Poetics (the Aldine press edition of the Greek text appeared in 1508). The commentaries and poetic treatises that followed were mainly concerned with the theory of imitation, with the genres, and with related matters arising from the interpretation of Aristotelian ideas. The Poetics, transmitted in the Middle Ages through Averroes’ commentary, was freshly translated into Latin (by Giorgio Valla, 1498, and Alessan-dro Pazzi, 1536) and Italian (Bernardo Segni, 1549). Commentaries on it were written by Francesco Robortello (1548), Vincenzo Maggi (1550), and Lodovico castel-vetro (1570). While admitting imitation (of anything, not merely human actions and emotions) as an object of the literary work, Robortello is concerned with rhetorical persuasion rather than Aristotelian description and maintains the emphasis on the Horatian goals of moral instruction and aesthetic pleasure (one source of which is the marvelous). Castelvetro strays further from Aristotle’s descriptive intention by reducing formal analysis, stressing rhetorical effect, and admitting only pleasure as the purpose of the literary work.
The imitation of models—specifically of Virgil and Cicero for Latin verse and prose, with Petrarch and Boccaccio as the vernacular equivalents—was central in Pietro bembo’s arguments (De imitatione, 1512; Prose della volgar lingua, 1525) and decisive in resolving the ques-tione della lingua. Marco Giralomo vida’s De arte poet-ica (1527), a verse treatise in the Horatian style which continued to influence 18th-century neoclassicism, accepted imitation as the goal of poetry, Virgil as the ideal model, and epic as the supreme genre. Giangiorgio trissino’s Poetica (parts 1-4, 1529; 5-6, essentially a translation of the Poetics, 1563) is perhaps the most important early vernacular treatise, with extensive treatment of prosody and rhyme and examples drawn from Italian poetry to illustrate points. La poetica (1536) by Bernardino Daniello of Lucca (c. 1500-65), a disciple of Bembo, is the earliest work to take up the question of verisimilitude. cinthio’s two theoretical discourses on drama and romance comment on many critical issues and are notable for a certain originality. Though influenced by Aristotle, he prefers the Roman and Senecan to the Greek model in tragedy and defends Ariosto and the romance (as a legitimate and distinct type of narrative). The dialogue Naugerius (1555) by Girolamo Fracastoro (1498-1553) takes into account the theories of Plato, Aristotle, and Horace. Julius Caesar scaliger (Poetices libri septem, 1561) emphasizes the didactic and moral purpose of art, which is held to be superior to nature, ranks Virgil above Homer, and gives clear definition to the genres. The work of Minturno (De poeta, 1559; Arte poetica, 1563) is the most comprehensive of Renaissance poetics in its coverage of mimetic theory, the rules of decorum, and the definition of genres (adding lyric to the traditional ones of drama and narrative); as such, it influenced tasso, ronsard, Sir Philip sidney, and later neoclassicism. The Della rhetorica (1562) of Francesco patrizi presents a Platonic view opposed to the dominant Aristotelianism.
In France critical theorizing began with the poets of the pleiade, whose ideals were definitively stated in du bellay’s Defense et illustration de la langue fran^aise (1549). It was much indebted to speroni’s Delle lingue (1542), which followed Bembo in arguing for the imitation of classical models as a means of improving the vernacular. De Bellay’s manifesto greatly enhanced the prestige of French—a suitable vehicle, he argued, for the most exalted subjects—and promoted the influence of Greek, Latin, and Italian forms of French verse. The excesses (especially in diction) and artificiality that eventually resulted were successfully countered by Francois de malherbe, who laid the foundations for French neoclassicism.
Although bacon and ascham in England expressed misgivings about the use of the vernacular in preference to Latin, the english language was both unified and solidly established in literary use in the 16th century and consequently one dimension of critical debate, so important in Italy and France, was minimized. More common than critical treatises in Elizabethan England were practical guides to writing or versifying, such as, for example, George Gas-coigne’s Certayne Notes of Instruction Concerning the Making of Verse or Rhyme in English (1575) and Thomas Puttenham’s Arte of English Poesie (1589). The outstanding work of apologetics, reflecting a number of the principal themes of Renaissance criticism, was Sidney’s Defence of Poesie (1595). Probably written in the early 1580s, this treatise contains a list, significant in its brevity, of English literary works considered by Sidney as worthy of critical attention in that they possessed "poeticall sinnewes": Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, The Mirror for Magistrates, Surrey’s lyrics, and spenser’s Shepheardes Calender.
Criticism, textual
As defined by the scholar poet A. E. Housman, "the science of discovering error in texts and the art of removing it." In as much as it is a matter of the application of common sense to emend slips of the keyboard, we practice it every day when we try to read a newspaper or email. In as much as it is a matter of the application of a set of rules (all of which are firmly based on common sense) to facilitate the restoration of a classical or biblical text, it is the product of a gradual but erratic development at the hands of scholars from the time of the Alexandrians (third century bce) to the present.
The Alexandrians, notably Callimachus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, and Aristarchus, were concerned to ensure the survival of all extant Greek literature in its purest (i.e. most accurate) form. This involved the acquisition and collation (comparison) of the oldest and best manuscripts by means of which a "critical" edition, approximating as closely as possible to the author’s own words, could be produced for the benefit of future readers. Their prime legacy to subsequent generations of textual critics was fidelity to tradition, and this remained the aim of the best scriptoria (centers of copying) throughout antiquity and for most of the Middle Ages.
During the 14th century scribal practices began to change. Less attention was given to the tradition, far more to the exercise of subjective "correction" of texts to make them conform with arbitrary notions of authenticity or readability. Motives varied from bowdlerization to meddling for its own sake, but most alterations that were deliberately introduced were the result of downright stupidity.
Happily there were exceptions. Demetrius Triclinius, for example, a schoolmaster in Thessalonica in the first quarter of the 14th century, made a notable contribution to the transmission of Greek tragedy and was personally responsible for the survival of about half of the plays of Euripides that we know today. In the West the Italian scholar and poet petrarch made similar contributions to the transmissions of Livy and Propertius.
In the 15th century, as the humanist tradition grew, and with it the fashion for collecting books and in particular the literature of the ancients, the pressure mounted on scribes to make more and more copies. The sudden proliferation of poor-quality texts was inevitable, but scholarly standards continued to be upheld in some quarters. Lorenzo valla, who went so far as to emend the Vulgate itself, exposed the socalled Donation of Constantine, purportedly a fourth-century document, as a later medieval forgery on historical and linguistic grounds. Angelo politian, probably the first Italian to be equally at home in Latin and Greek, saw his way through the welter of humanist copies to establish principles about the earliest recoverable stage of a textual tradition that were not to be superseded for three centuries.
Coincident with the proliferation of ancient texts was the invention of printing. Most of the principal classical Latin authors had found their way into print by the end of the 15th century. Typographical difficulties held up the printing of Greek texts, but by the time of his death in 1515 Aldus manutius had overseen the first printing of most of the major authors. The survival of ancient literature was finally ensured, but the price was the quality of the text. In their haste to publish printed versions the early printers had often seized the first manuscript that came to hand, giving it at best a veneer of critical attention. For the next 300 years the activity of textual critics was to be dominated by the need to unpick the tangled web created by these first editions.
Crivelli, Carlo
(c. 1435-c. 1495) Italian painter Born in Venice, Crivelli probably trained in the vivarini family workshop and was later influenced by the painters of Padua, including schiavone and mantegna. After being imprisoned for adultery Crivelli left Venice and settled in Ascoli Piceno in the Marches (1468), developing a contemplative and highly ornamental style and concentrating upon executing religious scenes. Major paintings include the Madonna della Passione (c. 1457; Museo di Castelvecchio, Verona), a Pietd (1485; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston), and the Madonna della Candellata (c. 1490; Brera, Milan), but he is best known for the Annunciation (1486; National Gallery, London), an exotic and eccentric masterpiece.
Croce, Giovanni
(c. 1557-1609) Italian composer A native of Chioggia, near Venice, and pupil of Gioseffo zarlino, Croce sang in the choir of St. Mark’s as a boy. He took holy orders before 1585 and was employed for much of his life at the church of Sta. Maria Formosa. In 1603 he became maestro di cappella at St. Mark’s. Croce wrote in an essentially conservative style; his madrigals and can-zonettes are lightly textured with attractive melodies, and his sacred compositions are generally small-scale, with simple melodies and straightforward harmonies. The posthumously published Sacre cantilene concertate (1610) shows the adoption of the more modern concertato style. Croce’s main influence outside Italy was as a madrigalist, and his contribution to Il trionfo di Dori (1592) probably inspired morley to compile The Triumphs of Oriana.
Crocus, Cornelius
(c. 1500-1550) Dutch educationist and playwright
Crocus was born in Amsterdam and after studying at Lou-vain was ordained a priest. He then became (1528) headmaster in Amsterdam, a post which he held until the year before his death, when he resigned it in order to travel on foot to Rome, where he was received by ignatius loyola into the Jesuit Order. He engaged in religious controversy against luther and the anabaptists, wrote a popular textbook to assist children to form a correct Latin style (1536), and composed several Latin dramas for performance in schools. Of these the Coemedia sacra Joseph (1535) was the most successful, achieving over 20 editions and being imitated as far afield as Poland (see rej, mikoiaj).
Croll, Oswald
(c. 1560-1609) German chemist and physician
The son of the mayor of Wetter, near Marburg, Croll studied at a number of German universities, then spent several years traveling throughout Europe. Thereafter he practiced medicine and in about 1602 entered the service of Prince Christian of Anhalt-Bernberg. He is also reported to have served subsequently as a councilor to Emperor rudolf ii. As a scientist Croll is best known for his Basilica chymica (Royal Chemistry; 1609), a highly influential text which did much to spread the ideas of paracelsus throughout Europe. The work also contained his De sig-naturis, an account of the widely held doctrine of signatures.
Cromwell, Thomas
(c. 1485-1540) English statesman The son of a blacksmith at Putney, near London, Cromwell fought for the French in Italy before qualifying as a lawyer. In 1514 Thomas wolsey appointed him collector of the see of York’s revenues. Cromwell entered parliament in 1523 and was made a privy councilor in 1531. As henry viii’s most trusted servant in the 1530s, Cromwell became chancellor of the exchequer (1533), lord privy seal (1536), lord high chamberlain (1539), and earl of Essex (1540). From 1535, as Henry’s vicar-general, Cromwell carried out the English Reformation, dissolving the monasteries and confiscating their property (153639). He arranged the king’s fourth marriage to Anne of Cleves, but when the marriage failed Cromwell fell from favor and was executed.
Cronaca, Simone, Il (Simone del Pollaiuolo)
(1457-1508) Italian architect
Cronaca was born in Florence and mainly worked there, apart from a period in Rome (1475-85), where he gained an understanding of classical architecture. In 1495 he built the Sala del Consiglio (now Sala dei Cinquecento) of the Palazzo Vecchio to accommodate the council instituted by savonarola on the lines of the Venetian maggior consiglio. He carried on benedetto da maiano’s work on the Palazzo Strozzi, probably designed the Palazzo Guadagni, and also executed Giuliano da sangallo’s design for the vestibule and sacristy of San Spirito. The church of San Salvatore al Monte, near Florence, which Cronaca built at the end of his life, is a model of classical simplicity and restraint, and was praised by Michelangelo.
Cryptography
The science of devising and deciphering codes and ciphers. Simple ciphers were well known in antiquity. Like the basic Caesar alphabet, in which plaintext letters were replaced by letters three places further along the alphabet, they were invariably simple substitution ciphers. Such methods were readily employed in the Renaissance, for example, in the correspondence of the Avignon popes during the great schism. Before long, however, skilled cryptographers such as Francois viete could be found attached to most courts, happily reading the encoded correspondence of their enemies.
The obvious step of complicating the cipher by using different alphabets to encode different parts of the plaintext was first proposed by alberti. Later generations of Renaissance cryptographers were left to work out precisely how polyalphabetic substitution could be deployed in practice. Alberti himself attempted to introduce polyal-phabeticity by the use of two cipher discs, the setting of which could be changed for the encoding of each letter. A further step was taken by trithemius in his Polygraphia (1518), in which he replaced the cipher discs of Alberti with the more familiar and useful rectangular tableau of alphabets. Precisely how such complicated ciphers could be made to operate with easily remembered and easily changed keys was shown by Giovanni Belaso in La cifra (1553).
The various innovations of Alberti, Trithemius, and Belaso were assembled and presented in a more convenient form by Blaise de vigenere in his Traicte des chiffres (1586). To their work he added the important notion of an autokey which, by using the plaintext as the key, endowed such ciphers with considerable security. So successful did Vigenere ciphers prove to be that they remained, when carefully constructed, indecipherable until the work of the great cryptoanalyst Friedrich Kasiski in the mid-19th century.
Cueva, Juan de la
(1543-1610) Spanish dramatist On returning from Mexico (1577), where he had gone with his brother in 1574, Cueva wrote plays for the public theater in his native Seville. These were produced between 1579 and 1581, after which he devoted himself to verse and other writing, none of which is significant. Exemplar poetico, a verse treatise on poetics, appeared in 1609. La Conquista de Betica (1603), his attempt at epic on a patriotic subject, has more historical than literary interest. His 14 surviving verse plays, 10 comedies and four tragedies, were published as Comedias y tragedias (1584). Three are based on classical subjects (for example, a tragedy on the death of Virginia, taken from the Roman historian Livy) and three on fictional sources. His important contribution, however, was introducing material drawn from Spanish historical chronicles and ballads. Examples of these are La muerte del rey Don Sancho (The Death of King Sancho) and Los siete infantes de Lara (The Seven Infantes of Lara). His allegorical play, El infamador, has similarities to the Don Juan legend and influenced tirso de mollna’s Burlador de Sevilla (1630). Cueva’s mediocre work is rhetorical, Senecan, and scarcely dramatic at all, but in adapting national themes for the stage he anticipated the truly Spanish drama of great playwrights of the Golden Age like Lope de vega.
Cupid (Amor)
The god of love, usually depicted as a young winged boy with bow and arrows and flaming torches. He is the Roman equivalent of the Greek Eros, and is generally shown in the company of his mother venus (Greek Aphrodite). Another characteristic feature is that Cupid is often depicted as blind, or at least blindfolded, as in Botticelli’s primavera and titian’s The Blindfolding of Amor (Galleria Borghese, Rome); the Renaissance Neoplatonic interpretation of the blindness of love rejected the original notion that it symbolized uncomprehending animal passion and exalted it into a symbol of love’s superiority to both body and intellect. Cupid also features in two other scenes that were vehicles of Neoplatonic allegories: Mercury teaching Cupid to read (an allegory of intellectual love), exemplified by correg-gio’s picture of the subject in the National Gallery, London, and the love of Cupid and psyche (the desire of the soul for divine love and their eventual union).
Following the Hellenistic tradition that there was not just one Eros, but a number of Erotes, Renaissance painters often depict several Cupids attending on Venus. These have a decorative function indistinguishable from that of the putti (Italian: young boys) found in both sacred and profane art.
Cusanus, Nicholas (Nicholas of Cusa, Nicholas of Kues)
(1401-1464) German philosopher and theologian Born at Kues on the Moselle, the son of a poor family, he entered the service of Ulrich, Count of Manderscheid, who supported him first while he studied at Deventer with the Brethren of the common life, then at Padua where he became a doctor of law (1423). He entered the Church and was entrusted with several important diplomatic missions, eventually becoming papal legate in Germany (1440-47). Nicholas V made him a cardinal (1448) and bishop of Brixen (1450). In 1451 he was sent to Germany to reform the monasteries but came into conflict with his secular lord, Archduke Sigismund, and was for a time imprisoned. He retired to Umbria where he died. His valuable library was left to the hospital he founded in Kues.
Cusanus was important both as a philosopher and as a Church reformer. He rejected scholasticism and in De docta ignorantia (1440) he maintained that humans could gain no certain knowledge and that God can only be apprehended by intuition. This idea was basic to the mysticism of Giordano bruno. Cusanus was also a scientist and mathematician. He proposed reforms of the calendar similar to those later undertaken by Pope gregory xiii, anticipated part of the Copernican theory by claiming that the earth rotated and was not the center of the universe, and professed in De quadratura circuli to have squared the circle.
Cyriac of Ancona (Ciriaco de’ Pizzicolli)
(1391-1452) Italian merchant and antiquarian with a particular interest in classical Greece
He traveled in Italy, Egypt, Greece, and the Near East, drawing monuments, copying inscriptions, and collecting manuscripts, statuettes, and medallions. His notebooks (Commentaries) and collection, although not published until the mid-18th century, have proved of immense value to archaeologists and classical scholars, particularly in the case of important monuments that have been destroyed since his day and to which his description is the only surviving witness.
Czech Brethren (Bohemian Brethren)
A group representing a radical but pacific tendency within the hussite movement of Bohemia. After the suppression of the militant Taborites in 1434, the Czech Brethren became the group most closely associated with the evangelical and social views of the early Hussites. Although possessing a sectarian tendency in their discipline and organization, they did demonstrate a desire for Protestant unity. Connections were established with luther’s Wittenberg and it was for them that Luther wrote his Adoration of the Sacrament (1523). Under the leadership of Jan Augusta, they endeavored (1532) to create greater unity through negotiation with Luther, Calvin, and Bucer, but this bore little fruit. The Brethren suffered persecution between 1548 and 1552 and many fled to Poland and Prussia. maximilian ii granted the Czech Brethren freedom to practice their religion (1575), and under rudolf ii they played a leading role in education; however, after the battle of the white mountain (1620) they were dispersed and eventually merged with other groups.
Daddi, Bernardo
(active 1290-c. 1349) Italian painter A gifted pupil of giotto, Daddi absorbed the seriousness of his master and combined it with the lyrical grace of the painters of Siena, becoming the leading artist in Florence during the 1340s. His earliest dated work was the Madonna triptych (1328; Uffizi, Florence), which was based upon Giotto’s Madonna Enthroned, originally in the same church. The influence of the Sienese school is evident in Daddi’s Enthroned Madonna (c. 1340; Uffizi), which reflects the style of the lorenzetti brothers and Si-mone martini in particular. Daddi also painted a number of notable smaller panels, such as The Story of St. Cecilia (Museo Civico, Pisa), which demonstrate his skill in the handling of color. Other works still in Florence include a Madonna (1347; Orsanmichele) and two frescoes showing the martyrdoms of SS. Lawrence and Stephen (Sta. Croce). Daddi’s influence remained profound throughout the 14th century.
Dalmau, Luis
(fl. 1428-1461) Spanish artist A native of Valencia, Dalmau visited Bruges (1431) and Flanders before returning to Spain by 1437. There he worked as court painter to Alfonso V of Aragon (alfonso i of Naples). An admirer of van eyck, he imitated the approach of the Flemish school in his own Virgin of the Councillors (1445; Barcelona museum), which was painted in the already outdated International Gothic style and is his only surviving documented work.
Dance
The Renaissance was perhaps more conscious of dance and dancing than any other period in Western history. As in the Middle Ages, dancing was a widely enjoyed physical pastime that also had an important role in courtship, social celebration, and the ritual of the courts. From the 15th century, however, dancing was discussed, analyzed, and celebrated as never before, and came to embody some of the most cherished ideals of the age. To the poet and philosopher, dance was a symbol of social order and cosmic harmony; to the humanist, it suggested the possibility of a perfect balance between mind and body, art and nature. The Renaissance saw the first theoretical writings about dance and the advent of the first professional dance teachers. It also saw the emergence of the distinction, unknown in the Middle Ages, between dance as a social activity and dance as a formal artistic spectacle.
The new attitudes to dance are first apparent in Italy, where dancing became an increasingly important part of court life from the late 14th century. The ability to dance with grace and vigor became an essential social accomplishment, indispensable to the aspiring courtier or the marriageable young lady. Dance was also the main element in the spectacular court festivities that arose at this time. These combined music and dancing with feasting, visual spectacle, and elements of pantomime or spoken drama to pay tribute to the reigning prince or duke. The usual mode was allegory or pastoral, and the performers the men and women of the court in elaborate costumes and masks (see masque). A well-documented example is the lavish banquet given for the wedding of Giangaleazzo Sforza, duke of Milan, in 1489, in which the dancers assumed roles from Greek mythology.
Such spectacles clearly required a high degree of choreography, and to provide it a new profession arose— that of the dancing master. The role was a complex one, involving not only the organization of lavish pageantry but also the teaching of dance steps to the nobility and advising in all matters of posture, deportment, and etiquette. The dancing masters published the first scholarly treatises on dance, and it is mainly owing to these works that we have any technical knowledge of the dances of the period. The earliest of the masters to be known by name is Domenico da Piacenza, whose De arte saltandi et choreas ducendi (On the art of dancing and directing choruses) was published in 1416. Domenico’s book includes the earliest known classification of dance steps and the first attempt to analyse dances in technical language. It also lists the chief courtly dances of the era as (in ascending order of speed) the bassedanza, a slow processional dance with gliding steps, the more animated quaternaria, the saltorella, an exuberant dance that involved little jumps, and the piva, or hornpipe. The high social status enjoyed by the dancing master is best illustrated by the career of Domenico’s disciple Antonio Cornazano (1431—c. 1500), who became an important official at the court of the sforza family in Milan. He was also apparently the first to use the word balletto (from Italian ballare, to dance) for the elaborate dance pageants of the day.
Dance Dancing Peasant Couple (1514), an engraving on copper by Albrecht Durer.
When Charles VIII of France invaded Italy in 1494, he and his courtiers were astonished by the balleti of the Italian courts, having seen nothing like them at home. However, it was France and not Italy that would see the development of dance into a formal theatrical art during the following century. The balletto was first introduced to the French court by catherine de’ medici, who married the future Henry II in 1533 and enticed the dancing master Baltazarini di Belgiosio (Balthasar de Beaujoyeulx; died c. 1587) to follow her. The first important ballet de cour, as the form became known in France, was the Ballet comique de la Reine, devised for Catherine by Bal-tazarini in 1581. This spectacular five-hour entertainment, which combined dance with singing, recitations, and elaborate sets, was staged in front of some 10,000 people at the Louvre and is considered a milestone in the development of the ballet proper. Another factor was the publication in 1588 of the century’s most important work on dance, the Orchesographie of Thoinot Arbeau (Jehan Tabouret; 1519-95). In this wide-ranging work Arbeau gave detailed descriptions of the era’s most popular dances (notably the pavane, the galliard, and the gavotte) and introduced an early system of dance notation. He also described for the first time the five basic foot positions that would become the basis of classical ballet a century later. The development of the ballet de cour into the ballet as we know it was completed during the reigns of Louis XIII (1610-43) and Louis XIV (1643-1715), as the narrative element grew more important, courtiers were replaced by professional performers, and a paying public was admitted.
Although the establishment of dance as a theatrical art was largely a process of refinement and formalization, the history of social dance in the same period shows, in some respects, an opposite tendency. During the Renaissance courtly forms of dance were constantly revitalized by the influence of folk styles. In this there is a sharp contrast with the Middle Ages, which made a fairly rigid distinction between the gravely formal couple dances thought suitable for knights and their ladies and the boisterous ring and chain dances of the peasantry. The influence of popular on courtly dance becomes most evident in the later 16th century. In France, for example, many court dances developed from the burla or branle, a peasant round dance so vigorous that it is thought to be the origin of the English word "brawl." Similarly, the most frequently mentioned dance of the century, the morisca, developed from a folk dance of Moorish Spain. In England, a particularly lively style of dance predominated at the court of elizabeth i, where courtiers vied to show off their strength and agility in the jig. Elizabeth herself was a lover of country dances and, in her youth, a keen exponent of the volta, an energetic leaping dance of French peasant origin. In Spain there was a particularly wide range of regional folk styles, and these greatly influenced the formal and theatrical styles that developed during the siglo de oro. Another important influence on Spanish styles was the indigenous dances of the New World; the fandango, for example, is thought to be of Afro-Cuban origin, while the sarabande and the chaconne may also have Central American roots. Whether courtly styles had a comparable influence on popular forms is hard to say; to judge by the visual evidence, the peasant dances depicted by brueghel in the mid-16th century appear little changed from those in the manuscript illuminations of the late Middle Ages.
