Tarantella

The specific dance-name varies with every region, for instance Sonu a ballu in Calabria, tammurriata in Campania, and pizzica in Salento.

In the Italian province of Taranto (taking its name from Tarantas), Apulia, the bite of a locally common type of wolf spider, Lycosa tarantula ("Lycos" in Greek means "wolf"), named "tarantula" after the region,[4] was popularly believed to be highly venomous and to lead to a hysterical condition known as tarantism.

The confusion appears to derive from the fact that the spiders, the condition, its sufferers (tarantolati), and the dances all have names similar to the city of Taranto.

The Neapolitan tarantella is a courtship dance performed by couples whose "rhythms, melodies, gestures, and accompanying songs are quite distinct" featuring faster more cheerful music.

The "magico-religious" tarantella is a solo dance performed supposedly to cure through perspiration the delirium and contortions attributed to the bite of a spider at harvest (summer) time.

Music appeared to be the only means of combating the strange epidemic [...] lively, shrill tunes, played on trumpets and fifes, excited the dancers; soft, calm harmonies, graduated from fast to slow, high to low, prove efficacious for the cure.

[10] The music used against spider bites featured drums and clarinets, was matched to the pace of the victim, and is only weakly connected to its later depiction in the tarantellas of Chopin, Liszt, Rossini, and Heller.