During the last decades, the critical function of the reception of Quijote over the centuries has been highlighted. In may be worth investigating the interest that musicians and choreographers demonstrated after the years following the publication of the two parts of the book. The authors of the libretti had to select the materials they wanted to use according to the chosen musical genre, the cultural environment of the moment and the expectations of the audience. In this work, the development of the quixotic themes in the history of Italian music and ballet is analyzed synthetically from Don Chisciotte della Mancia by Morosini and Fedeli (Venice, 1680) to Don Chisciotte by Vito Frazzi (Florence, 1952 ) with some considerations about contemporary musical production.