This season of dancing and music was called "the women's little
carnival," for it was women more especially who conducted the
arrangements; so that throughout the whole country they saved up
their spare money, for the purpose of rewarding the welcome
musicians, and many of them neglected their household employments
to participate in this festival of the sick. Mention is even made
of one benevolent lady (Mita Lupa) who had expended her whole
fortune on this object.
The music itself was of a kind perfectly adapted to the nature of
the malady, and it made so deep an impression on the Italians,
that even to the present time, long since the extinction of the
disorder, they have retained the tarantella, as a particular
species of music employed for quick, lively dancing. The
different kinds of tarantella were distinguished, very
significantly, by particular names, which had reference to the
moods observed in the patients. Whence it appears that they aimed
at representing by these tunes even the idiosyncrasies of the mind
as expressed in the countenance. Thus there was one kind of
tarantella which was called "Panno rosso," a very lively,
impassioned style of music, to which wild dithyrambic songs were
adapted; another, called "Panno verde," which was suited to the
milder excitement of the senses caused by green colours, and set
to Idyllian songs of verdant fields and shady groves.
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