A Dictionary of Music and Musicians/Ridotto

RIDOTTO, an Italian term for an assembly with music, and usually with masks.

They went to the Ridotto—'tis a hall
Where people dance and sup and dance again;
The proper name, perhaps, were a mask'd ball,
But that's of no importance to my strain,

says Byron in 'Beppo,' writing from Venice in 1817. They were known in Italy much earlier than that, and had spread to both Germany and England. They are frequently mentioned by Horace Walpole under the name 'Ridotto,' and were one of the attractions at Vauxhall and Ranelagh in the middle of the last century. In Germany and France a French version of the name was adopted—Redoute. [See p. 89].

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