Canal Grande, Venice
Although I visited after the annual Carnevale di Venezia (which starts two weeks before Ash Wednesday and runs through to Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi Gras), people were still showing off their carnival costumes and masks alongside the Canal Grande.
Though it probably had much earlier roots, the Carnival in Venice was supposedly first recorded in 1296, when the Senate of the Republic issued an edict declaring the day before Lent as a public holiday. Much as in other cities, Medieval and Renaissance Venetians appear to have celebrated Carnival in several guises. On the one hand, it was an official festival, for the most part staged in Piazza San Marco, the Piazzetta, in the courtyard of the Ducal Palace, or out in the Bacino of San Marco – the basin adjoining the Molo. These events, especially during and after the sixteenth century, celebrated the founding and governing myths of the state – its tranquility, durability, prosperity, fairness, and piety. Some of these official festivities were violent – oxen and pigs were let loose in the Palace courtyard and then slaughtered – but they still conveyed the overarching theme of civic unity. On the other hand, a good deal of popular energy during Carnival was directed into group rivalries, between parishes or between large geographic factions that divided the city. These could be extremely violent at times, involving bull fights, the running of oxen or pigs down the streets, or mass brawls with sticks or fists, often on bridges.
By the seventeenth century the Carnival of Venice, like that of Rome, had become a regular attraction for tourists from Northern Europe – especially the so-called Grand Tourists.
When the Republic fell in 1797, Carnival was soon banned, and it remained forbidden throughout the Austrian occupation (1815-66). With reunification, however, an attempt was made to bring Carnival back, though according to the local newspaper (the Gazzetta di Venezia) it had lost much of its original participatory character, with the festivities attracting more spectators than celebrants.
The Carnival was reincarnated in early February 1979, when, according to the Gazzettino di Venezia (8 February 1979), some parents and civic leaders in the city decided to sponsor a more formal festival to substitute for the parties of teenagers, which many thought were getting too rowdy.
By 1981, or 1983-84 at the latest, The Carnival of Venice had largely mutated to be A Carnival in Venice, with the city and its citizens playing an increasingly passive and background role for the tens, and then hundreds of thousands of tourists who showed up – more every year. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the numbers could actually be frightening—around 800,000 for the entire 2002 Carnival season (now expanded to around three weeks) and nearly a million by 2004. Venice’s resident population, meanwhile, has dropped to just about 60,000.
Canal Grande, Venice
Although I visited after the annual Carnevale di Venezia (which starts two weeks before Ash Wednesday and runs through to Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi Gras), people were still showing off their carnival costumes and masks alongside the Canal Grande.
Though it probably had much earlier roots, the Carnival in Venice was supposedly first recorded in 1296, when the Senate of the Republic issued an edict declaring the day before Lent as a public holiday. Much as in other cities, Medieval and Renaissance Venetians appear to have celebrated Carnival in several guises. On the one hand, it was an official festival, for the most part staged in Piazza San Marco, the Piazzetta, in the courtyard of the Ducal Palace, or out in the Bacino of San Marco – the basin adjoining the Molo. These events, especially during and after the sixteenth century, celebrated the founding and governing myths of the state – its tranquility, durability, prosperity, fairness, and piety. Some of these official festivities were violent – oxen and pigs were let loose in the Palace courtyard and then slaughtered – but they still conveyed the overarching theme of civic unity. On the other hand, a good deal of popular energy during Carnival was directed into group rivalries, between parishes or between large geographic factions that divided the city. These could be extremely violent at times, involving bull fights, the running of oxen or pigs down the streets, or mass brawls with sticks or fists, often on bridges.
By the seventeenth century the Carnival of Venice, like that of Rome, had become a regular attraction for tourists from Northern Europe – especially the so-called Grand Tourists.
When the Republic fell in 1797, Carnival was soon banned, and it remained forbidden throughout the Austrian occupation (1815-66). With reunification, however, an attempt was made to bring Carnival back, though according to the local newspaper (the Gazzetta di Venezia) it had lost much of its original participatory character, with the festivities attracting more spectators than celebrants.
The Carnival was reincarnated in early February 1979, when, according to the Gazzettino di Venezia (8 February 1979), some parents and civic leaders in the city decided to sponsor a more formal festival to substitute for the parties of teenagers, which many thought were getting too rowdy.
By 1981, or 1983-84 at the latest, The Carnival of Venice had largely mutated to be A Carnival in Venice, with the city and its citizens playing an increasingly passive and background role for the tens, and then hundreds of thousands of tourists who showed up – more every year. By the late 1990s and early 2000s, the numbers could actually be frightening—around 800,000 for the entire 2002 Carnival season (now expanded to around three weeks) and nearly a million by 2004. Venice’s resident population, meanwhile, has dropped to just about 60,000.