La Pizzica is a popular dance characteristic of the territory of Puglia between Taranto and Salento Leccese. Until the beginning of 20thcentury, however, this dance was widespread throughout Puglia, with different names. In general, it is part of the large traditional family of the “Tarantelle”.

Story of the Pizzica

The word “Pizzica” appears for the first time in a source written in 1797, referring to an evening dance organized by the nobility of Taranto in honor of King Ferdinand IV of Borbone, who was on a visit to the city. In the 19th century the Pizzica was firmly linked to the therapeutic practices – made of dance and music, precisely – specific to the “Tarantismo”, following a tradition born in the fourteenth century. The tarantismo refers to the phenomenon of “tarantolati”, people whose illness according to tradition was linked to the “bite” of a tarantula, -the lycosa tarantula- or of a scorpion: the Pizzica and its music was used as a medicine able to heal the effect of the poison.