Italian dances

thumb|Saltarello. Illustration by [[Bartolomeo Pinelli.]] The saltarello is a musical dance originally from Italy. The first mention of it is in Add MS 29987, a late-fourteenth- or early fifteenth-century manuscript of Tuscan origin, now in the British Library. It was usually played in a fast triple meter and is named for its peculiar leaping step, after the Italian verb saltare ("to jump"). This characteristic is also the basis of the German name Hoppertanz or Hupfertanz ("hopping dance"); other names include the French pas de Brabant and the Spanish alta or alta danza.

thumb|upright=1.4|Carillon of a [[morris dancer over a jeweler in Munich]] Moresca (Italian), morisca (Spanish), mourisca (Portuguese) or moresque, mauresque (French), also known in French as the danse des bouffons, is a dance of exotic character encountered in Europe in the Renaissance period. This dance usually took form of medieval wars in Spain between Moors and Christians and is related to the Spanish Moors and Christians festivals. Elements of moresca include blackening of the face, bells attached to the costumes and, in occasions, men disguised as women to portray fools. An example of t

thumb|330px|Bergamesca ('The Buffens'), Straloch MS., c. 1600 . thumb|330px|Bergamesca variant, MS. Lute Book, c. 1600 .

The passamezzo (plural: passamezzi or passamezzos) is an Italian folk dance of the 16th and early 17th centuries.