Ballo became fashionable March 12, 2011
Posted by egabriel in Ballet History.Tags: ballerina, ballerinas, ballet, ballet dancers, ballet dancing, Ballet History, culture, famous ballerina, famous ballerinas, famous ballet, famous ballet dancers, performance, renaissance
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Female dancers of those times were not supposed to show their legs or even ankles to the public. All ballet dancers used masks without showing their faces to the public. Their artistic expression was supposed to agitate and excite the audience to such degree that it would join the participants in the end of their performance.
Ballo got big exposure when future French king Henry the Second married Catherine Medici who was surrounded by the patrons of the Renaissance art and culture since her birth. New bride replaced old Medieval dances with vivacious and extravagant dances of her native Italy. Ballo instantly became fashionable, and first famous ballet dancers became recognizable figures at the French court.
Dancing performance for special occasions February 3, 2011
Posted by egabriel in Ballet History.Tags: ballerina, ballerinas, ballet, ballet dancers, ballet dancing, Ballet History, ballet specialists, choreography, culture, dancing performance, entertainment, famous ballerina, famous ballerinas, famous ballet, famous ballet dancers, famous people, history, life, performance, renaissance
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The majority of general public does not really know that ballet was not the invention of the French or Russian dancers but appeared much earlier. In fact, all ballet specialists conclude, that first ballet originated in Italy in the times of Renaissance. Naturally, ballet slippers, tutus or complex ballet positions and moves had not been invented yet.
First ballet or “ballo” as it was called in Italy, was the dancing performance designated for special occasions. It was not the entertainment of poor people, of course, it was the privilege of aristocrats. Only the highest nobility could organize ballo for lavish court pageantry, big weddings, or festivals.
All Renaissance ballet dancers – ballerinas - dressed according to the fashions of the times. But the choreography gradually was getting more complex – from simple dances to all kind of adaptations of court dance steps. This probably allowed the evolution of the ballo into more sophisticated type of dance in the end.
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Study of the occult arts October 16, 2009
Posted by egabriel in History of Magic.Tags: fascination, magic, occult, practices, renaissance, ritual, sorcery, superstition
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Well, times for magic were certainly changing during Renaissance. Magic saw a resurgence in hermeticism and Neo-Platonic varieties of ceremonial magic. The Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, on the other hand, saw the rise of science. Chemistry was substituting alchemy, astronomy was slowly dethroning the Ptolemaic theory of the universe assumed by astrology. There was the some development of the germ theory of disease, that restricted the scope of applied magic and threatened the belief systems it relied on. A nice gentleman wrote to us recently, explaining that there was seven arts of magic prohibited by canon law during the period of Renaissance: necromancy, geomancy, hydromancy, aeromancy, pyromancy, chiromancy, spatulamancy. Here we go, I named them all! I even published an article for my web analytics company, explaining in details which means what.
Both bourgeoisie and nobility in the 15th and 16th century showed great fascination with these arts, which exerted an exotic charm by their ascription to Arabic, Jewish, Gypsy and Egyptian sources. There was great uncertainty in distinguishing practices of vain superstition, blasphemous occultism, and perfectly sound scholarly knowledge or pious ritual. The intellectual and spiritual tensions erupted in the Early Modern witch craze, further reinforced by the turmoils of the Protestant Reformation, especially in Germany, England, and Scotland.
Study of the occult arts was intellectually respectable in the Renaissance, and remained so far into 17th century. At the peak of the witch trials, there was a certain danger to be associated with witchcraft or sorcery, and most learned authors take pains to clearly renounce the practice of forbidden arts. Thus, Agrippa while admitting that natural magic is the highest form of natural philosophy unambiguously rejects all forms of ceremonial magic. Indeed, the keen interest taken by intellectual circles in occult topics provided one driving force that enabled the witch hunts to endure beyond the Renaissance and into the 18th century. As the intellectual mainstream in the early 18th century ceased to believe in witchcraft, the witch trials subsided almost instantaneously.
Position of heavenly bodies influenced the affairs of mankind October 15, 2008
Posted by egabriel in History of Astrology.Tags: affairs, astrologers, astrology, astronomers, astronomy, book, chiromancy, compliment, discoveries, false, famous, form, fortunes, history, horoscope, mankind, mathematicus, medieval, nature, position, predictions, reading, renaissance, sciences, sevices, stars, trouble, true, universe
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History of astrology. I just had to know what was going with astrology during Middle Ages. Well, Astrology became part of the Kabalistic lore of Jews and Christians, and came to be the substance of the astrology of the Middle Ages. Even church prelates and nobility were using astrologers’ services. And at that time everybody believed that the position of heavenly bodies influenced the affairs of mankind. In fact, astrology was placed on a similar footing of equality with astronomy and other sciences.
During the Middle Ages astrologer was proudly called “mathematicus”, which translated from Latin meant simply mathematician. During Middle Ages this term was used to denote a person proficient in astrology, astronomy, and mathematics. In those strange times astrologers were dominant by the terror they inspired, and by the martyrdom they endured when their predictions occasionally were either too true or too false. And the book “Liber Astronomicus” written by a couple of Italian astrologers who were famous in XIII century Europe was proclaimed to be the most important astrological work. To tell the truth, medieval and Renaissance astrologers did not give themselves the trouble of reading the stars, but contented themselves with telling fortunes by faces. They practiced chiromancy, and relied on afterwards drawing a horoscope to suit.
During the Renaissance, a new form of astrology evolved in which court astrologers would compliment their use of horoscopes with genuine discoveries about the nature of the universe as astronomers. How many of you know that Galileo Galilei, Tycho Brahe and Johannes Kepler, were themselves practicing astrologers? These guys overturned the old astrological order of the time.
