Italian Carnival

Hundred and hundreds of years ago, the followers of the Catholic religion in Italy started the tradition of holding a wild costume festival right before the first day of Lent. Because Catholics are not supposed to eat meat during Lent, they called their festival, carnevale — which means “to put away the meat.” As time passed, carnivals in Italy became quite famous; and in fact the practice spread to France, Spain, and all the Catholic countries in Europe. Then as the French, Spanish, and Portuguese began to take control of the Americas and other parts of the world, they brought with them their tradition of celebrating carnival.

ITALIAN CARNIVAL MASKPULCINELLA

Pulcinella is a character that emerges

powerfully from the Commedia dell‘Arte.

Philosophical, eternally melancholic dreamer

as only a representant person of the

napolitan culture could be, Pulcinella has

spirit of his own. No tension or despair, his

melancholic approach to life makes him

coasts problems, situations, life adventure

and, at the end, simply getting out of

everything, in the same simply manner as

how he got involved. His costume is poor and

white.He wears a black mask and the

coppolone hat.

ARLECCHINO

Arlecchino is a poor character. He wears a

colourfull pached costume. A poem of the

masks tells that all the regional masks have

sewed a piece of the dress. Arlecchino is a

simple character. With his simpaty he

outwits all the arrogant and greedly

personages. He has an anarchic kind of

behavior, he is always hungry and without

money. He is the engine of the action in the

story of the “Commedia dell'arte”. The first

actor that played with the Arlecchino's

mask was Alberto Naselli in Bergamo, 1572.

ITALIAN CARNIVAL MASK

ITALIAN CARNIVAL MASK

DOCTOR PESTE

This mask is very famous and has a particular form. It is white with a long beak made of pasta and used by doctors to protect themselves from the contamination plague.

The doctors wear a long black dress.

 

ITALIAN CARNIVAL MASKBRIGHELLA

Brighella Cavicchio from ValBrembana is his whole

name.

This mask represents a cunning, clever servant

that can help his master, but even deceives him.

He is an unscropulouse character and he is able

to

do every kind of job: he can become a barman, a

soldier or a thief. He is the fulest servant of the

”Commedia dell'Arte”.

He is a mask from Bergamo Alta. He wears a

strange green lined shirt, large trousers, a short

cloak and a funny hat. His way of speaking is

dialect from Bergamo.