Some funny news about the celebration of Carnival

There is no party more democratic and without barriers of the carnival, in which at least for a day anybody can be who they want. This great celebration brings traditions, trivia and stories to be told, Italy is full of them and years later, they continue to be handed down.

For example, do you know how old is the first mask ever?
In a cave from the Tertiary they found the oldest evidence of use of a mask by men. It's a hunting scene in which appears the figure of a man dressed as a goat.



What are the longest Italian carnivals?
They are two, the Ambrosian carnival (also called "Carnevalon"), which ends on the first saturday of Lent, and the Putignano carnival, in Apulia, which begins on December the 26th and ends on Ash Wednesday, with the burning and the funeral of the puppet King Carnival.

What's the oldest carnival in Italy?
It's the Carnival of Fano. First known document that describe the typical celebrations of a Carnival in the city, dates back to 1347.

How are the confetti born?
The confetti (in Italian "coriandoli"), small pieces of colored paper, originally were Coriander (in Italian "coriandolo") seeds colored with plaster, used as sugared almond (in Italian "confetti") to throw from floats and balconies.

How was made the papier mache?
The birth of the modern "papier mache" is due to the Maestro Antonio D'Ariano(1925) who thought of a new system: covering the clay with chalk, so as to obtain a negative mold of the original figure, and then put several layers of paper within this negative model. Once dried, the paper template came off from the plaster with no problems, identical to the original, weighing a few pounds instead of tons. With this invention you can build huge carnival floats that defy the laws of gravity.



When was the first carnival float built?
Despite the ancient origins of some Italian carnivals, the first float was built in Viareggio only in 1873. It was built by port workers, inspired by the techniques used to build ships. They were able to build complex structures with a system of ropes, steel cables and pulleys used on construction sites.

The origin of Carnival in Verona dates back to 1531, year in which a strong epidemic disease led the city up to the brink of a people uprising: the bakers refused to produce and sell bread because of the increasing in the price of the flour, rousing the people anger.
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