Carnival of Venice

Masks and the Most Serene Republic

Legend traces the Carnival of Venice to 1162, when the Venetian Republic defeated the Patriarch of Aquileia, Ulrich II, and people gathered to dance in St Mark’s Square. The festival became official in the Renaissance, preserved the image of Venice’s splendour through the Baroque, and was at its most famous in the eighteenth century — a season of licence and pleasure.

Masks were always at its heart. Traditionally they could be worn from St Stephen’s Day, 26 December, until midnight on Shrove Tuesday, as well as on other occasions in the year. One scholar suggests that covering the face was a Venetian answer to one of Europe’s most rigid class systems: during Carnival, the laws on what each class could wear were suspended, and people could dress as they liked. Mask-makers, the mascherari, had their own guild with a statute dated 1436.

Banned and revived

Under the Austrian emperor Francis II the festival was outlawed in 1797, and masks were strictly forbidden. It reappeared only briefly and privately in the nineteenth century. In 1979 the Carnival returned, as part of an effort to revive the history and culture of Venice, and it now draws about three million visitors a year. One of its best-known events is the contest for la maschera più bella, the most beautiful mask, judged by international costume and fashion designers.

The craft

Venetian masks were made of leather, porcelain or glass. Today most are made with gesso and gold leaf, hand-painted and decorated with feathers and gems, which makes them expensive beside mass-produced masks made abroad — a competition that is hastening the decline of the city’s own craft.