The passage describes Boccaccio and The Decameron historical documents which talks of the Italian folk dance. For quite a long time, this fork dance has been one of the known Italian cultures. This has shown a continuous strand of Italian culture dating back to the time of Dante, Renaissance, Tarantella and the modernized fork dance and music. The history of the Italian fork dance included the middle ages. This consisted of a circle dance with singing and was called medieval dance, which dominated Europe from 12th and the 14th centuries. Medieval dance originated in Italy. Giovanni Del Virgilio describes the Italian fork dance and how women on their way from church used to form a circle, the song leader sung the first stanza and the dancers stop at the end of a stanza. They then drop hands singing the refrain(Bianca 38).
Giovanni Boccaccio illustrated how dances were used during social functions. His masterpiece talks of men and women traveling upcountry in a bid to escape Black Death. They held social functions, told stories, sung and danced. In the countryside, dance was townsfolk with a little Decameron. Boccaccio continues to describe the story of the priest and the Monna Belcolore (Bianca 42).
Renaissance was told by the Author Simone describing dance and music in a make-believe court. He then changed his attitude from a dance court to art form. During his times, authors did not describe dance figures and steps assuming that everybody was conversant. Renaissance dance existed even before 16th century, which included circle dances.
During the 18th and the 19th centuries, Tarantella appeared in south Italy. Goethe, a German writer saw Tarantella being performed in Naples, Italy. The dance included women and two girls who danced with castanets with a tambourine accompaniment (Bianca 44).
Gaspare Ungarelli who collected folk dances giving a description for thirty dances did a dance research. This gave rise to Italian music, customs, dance and festivals, which was published in 1931(Bianca 63).
Work cited
Bianca, Galanti. Dances of Italy. New York: Chanticleer Press. 1950.Print
