Italian Dance

Cia Fornaroli,1888—1954, was an Italian dancer who studied at the La Scala Ballet School. She was prima ballerina at New York's Metropolitan Opera Ballet in 1910–1914. She was married to Dr. Walter Toscanini, 1898 - 1971, who was an Italian-American historian and ballet choreographer and a son of Arturo Toscanini, an Italian conductor and one of the most acclaimed musicians of the early 20th century. Arturo Toscanini was at various times the music director of La Scala in Milan, the New York Philharmonic and the first music director of the NBC Symphony Orchestra.

After Cia Fornaroli death, her husband Walter Toscanini handed over their collection of dance memorabilia to the New York Public Library. NYPL Cia Fornaroli Collection represents Italian dance from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century. The collection includes the finest renaissance dance manuals, scores of books, letters, programs, hundreds of designs, photographs, lithographs, and ephemera.