Venice Carnival 2016

• Venice Carnival 2016

Carnivals - a costumed celebrations associated with disguises, masquerades and a colorful procession, mass festivities and theatrical performances. They celebrated before Lent. Carnivals are distributed mainly in Catholic countries, and dates back to the pagan customs of the Roman Empire. Carnival appeared in the IX-X centuries. By this time the earliest mention of the periodic urban festivals in different cities of Western Europe.

The first carnivals were in Italy, and the very first of them - the carnival in Venice.

The first mention of the carnival in Venice belongs to 1094, though to XIII-XIV centuries masks carnivals were not.

In 1162, in honor of the victory over the Patriarch of Aquileia begun festivities on the main square in Venice - San Marco. Presumably from the time the carnival has become an annual event.

The wearing of masks has been very popular for a while; Venetians wore them for six months - from August to Lent. In connection with the increase in the number of brothels masks were banned by the Council of Ten in 1703, but next year the decision was canceled.

The Carnival of Venice in Piazza San Marco, 30 January 2016.

About 3 million people come to the Carnival of Venice, including participants and photographers.

In the XVII century the Venetian Carnival was in decline, but in 1979 the Venetian Carnival once again become popular: the Italian government elected him to promote the history and culture of Venice.

Venice Carnival opens old Venetian festival - Festa delle Marie, which is dedicated to the liberation of the Venetian girls who were abducted by pirates from Istria.

And here Marie in Piazza San Marco during the Venice carnival, January 30, 2016.

are organized and costumed presentation, which reliably recreate the enchanting, frivolous carnival atmosphere of past centuries.

In 1996, the Carnival of Venice got its own anthem, who wrote the famous couturier Pierre Cardin. It turns out that he also wrote the music.

The last day of the carnival - Shrove Tuesday (similar Slavic Shrovetide), followed by a forty-day fast before Easter.

And of course, the traditional symbol of the annual carnival in Venice - the famous Venetian mask.

The Gondoliers. Venice, January 30, 2016.

Masks were used in everyday life in order to conceal his face. It served a variety of purposes: from the romantic to the crimes. The last led to a ban on wearing masks outside the Carnival just before the end of the Venetian Republic.

The manufacturing process of the Venetian carnival mask outwardly simple. Take the plaster mold, oiled with vaseline, and fills the inside layer of the papier-mache, prepared according to a special recipe. The resulting preform is dried and polishes, then cut out openings therein to the eye. After that, proceed to the decor.

Masks are often coated with a special paint to make them look like old. surface decoration - it is often a slow and painstaking process, using acrylic paint, gold and silver foil, enamel, lacquer, expensive fabrics, rhinestones, feathers, beads ... It all depends on the imagination of the artist.