Thoinot Arbeau's Orchesographie is the best-known European dance manual printed before 1600. It contains 47 choreographies that reflect a remarkably extensive sampling of dances performed in sixteenth-century France. These include choreographies for the most widely referenced dances in French literature, as well as in visual arts, courtesy books and dance music throughout sixteenth-century Europe: the basse dance, branle, pavane and gaillarde, and the only known extant choreography of the volta. Clothed in charm and humor, information about the history, contemporary practice, and character of dance, with instructions for its performance, form the body of this extremely valuable text.

As Carla Zecher summarizes, “In Paris, Lyons, and Toulouse, humanists, book illustrators, and printers collaborated in the creation of pedagogical literature.” Arbeau’s book is part of this literature and, like many contemporary pedagogical works, it takes the form of a dialogue between student and teacher. The dances and their music render Orchesographie a useful guide to a fascinating area of French Renaissance life.

Beyond the obvious fact that Arbeau preserved the tunes and choreographies found in Orchesographie, it is not clear whether he created any of the tunes or choreographies himself. In some cases, he claims to be relying on memory (basse dance) or observation (“Trihory de Bretagne”), but he also offers his own point of view on certain dances (“Gavotes”). This is particularly the case for dances in which steps are subdivided into variations, called “divisions.” The widespread popularity of the tunes, which is evident by the number of concordances I have located, suggests that most of the dances are not original to Arbeau; but some, which seem to have been created for specific events (e.g. “Aridan”), may well have been his own. So, just as xerox was a brand name that came to be used generically, throughout this book I will refer to the choreographies and tunes, as collected in Orchesographie, as Arbeau’s. This would seem to be a small honor to pay to the memory of the person who preserved access to this wonderful store of knowledge for posterity.

Arbeau inhabits an important position in a triumvirate of dance masters. His tome joins those of Fabritio Caroso and Cesare Negri in providing the main printed sources of choreographies representing the period 1520 to 1620.