Ancient Ballet

In the tiny and extremely tasteful composition, it’s clear how much Venanzo Crocetti’s aesthetic research starts from a solid knowledge of classical art. The young boy playing the ancient two-piped aulos to make the girl dance in front of him finds prior iconographies in the dance scene of the peristyle of the Villa dei Misteri (Pompeii, I century B.C., 10th scene), with the representation of the bacchic parade with satyrs and maenads from the Farnese collection (Naples, Archeological Museum, 150-200 A.D.) but also with the Dance of Nudes by Antonio del Pollaiolo, fresco painted in La Gallina villa in Arcetri, province of Florence (1465 ca.). The most fitting reference is probably the Maenads’ Dance of the Chamber of Ovid of Palace Te in Mantua for which Anselmo Guazzi and Agostino da Mozzanica were paid back in 1527: on the western wall in particular there are a double-piped flute player slightly bended and and two dancing girls with a raised up arm and the other behind the back just like in the Crocetti’s composition.