Sofia Fuoco
Italian ballerina, 1830-1916
Sofia Fuoco (16 January 1830 in Milan, the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia – 16 June 1916 in Carate Urio, the Province of Como), was an Italian ballerina, born as Maria Brambilla; her stage name, Fuoco (the mother's family name, given because there was more than one "Maria Brambilla" at the dance school) means ″Fire″ in Italian.
Biography
Brambilla was born in Milan. She began to study ballet with Carlo Blasis in c. 1837 and later became one of his so-called Pleiades dancers. In 1839 at age of nine she made her first stage appearance in the Teatro alla Scala. In 1843 when she was only thirteen she was named the prima ballerina assoluta of the theater. Same year she was the first one who danced Giselle in Milan. In 1846 she danced in Perrot's Pas de Quatre staged in La Scala by Filippo Taglioni.
In 1846, age sixteen, she was invited to the Paris National Theatre to replace Carlotta Grisi. Choreographer Joseph Mazilier was going to stage his new ballet Betty with Grisi however the ballerina had signed a contract with the Roman Apollo Theater.
The public source identifies “Sofia Fuoco” as italian ballerina, 1830-1916. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Sofia, Fuoco and Italian.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q21041733. VIAF identifies the subject as 58378741. The Library of Congress control number is n97858337. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1830, 1916, 1837 and 1839.
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This entry incorporates text from “Sofia Fuoco” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.