There are just too many curious things about the way Carnival was back in the Great Days, so I’m only going to tell you a few of the ones I think are interesting. Anyway, it’s not as if they have any relevance now. For all the roar of media coverage today, what goes on here is a hoarse whisper compared to the cacophony that was Carnival before 1797.
And Paris must be deserted; there are nothing but French people in town.
For many centuries, Carnival here was primarily a Venetian phenomenon, which is to say an integral part of Venetian life and culture. But when Vasco da Gama reached the Spice Islands by means of a daring new route round the Cape of Good Hope (1497), Venice’s monopoly of the spice trade collapsed virtually overnight, dragging the city’s economy down with it.
Struggling to get the city back on its feet, somebody began to put the word out that the Venice Carnival was one heck of a thing to see. Yes, Venice could discern its potential for tourism even before the invention of bullets and parachutes, and the Venetian merchants, staring into their now-empty coffers, were quick to make the most of it.
- Costumes: People would dress up as virtually anything, from a classic character such as Pulcinella (from Naples) or Arlecchino (from Bergamo) to plague victims, blind people, cripples, Jews, Turks, lepers, peasants from Friuli, men dressed as women. These were known as “Gnaga” ( NYAH-ga) and had their own particular mask to go with their feminine clothes. The mask was meant to resemble a cat, and the person would meow instead of talking. (It must have looked great on a person with a beard.) The gnaga also carried a little cat in a basket, or sometimes even a tiny baby, or he/she’d be accompanied by men dressed as babies. Don’t ask me.
A "gnaga" with a suspiciously empty basket (Giovanni Grevenbroch, 18th century).
The wildly absurd and equally wildly obscene elements which so many favored (I refer to behavior as much as garb) were not simply a crucial social safety valve (keeping in mind that the patricians lived with loads of restrictions, too — it wasn’t just the salt of the earth that needed a break). It appears that people have always exploited the absurd and the obscene as a way of exorcising their dread of death and the demonic, and Carnival was the Olympics of spitting in the face of fear, as well as in the face of manners and rules and occasionally, I imagine, other people.
Sir Thomas More famously stated that “The devil, a proud spirit, cannot endure to be mocked,” so the broader, sharper, and deeper the derision, the better. That went double for the rude and the lewd. So really, unless you were putting somebody life or savings in danger, there was no such thing as too wild, too crude, too raunchy– too anything. They organized races for boats rowed by dwarfs, or the blind.
- Masks: There is a universe of lore about their meaning, their function, etc. Did you know that…
The white mask often called a bauta is more correctly termed “Volto“ (face) or “Larva.” Sounds repellent, but it comes from the Latin meaning ghost, specter, minor evil spirit. Its extraordinary shape resolves several important concerns: First, it completely hides the face; second, it leaves space for the wearer to eat and drink; third, its shape alters the speaker’s voice, thereby acting as a kind of vocal, as well as visual, disguise.
The white mask often called a bauta is more correctly termed “Volto“ (face) or “Larva.” Sounds repellent, but it comes from the Latin meaning ghost, specter, minor evil spirit. Its extraordinary shape resolves several important concerns: First, it completely hides the face; second, it leaves space for the wearer to eat and drink; third, its shape alters the speaker’s voice, thereby acting as a kind of vocal, as well as visual, disguise. 
I think my favorite is the “Moretta,” or “Servetta Muta.” It’s so strange it could only have come from France (it did), and it started out, at least, as something to be worn by women when they went to visit a convent. It was usually made of black velvet, and wasn’t attached by ribbons; you kept it on your face by biting down on a small button attached to the faceward side. (Hence the term “mute.”)
I can see what the appeal would be for men, but if you couldn’t speak, why would you go visit someone in a convent in the first place? To give the nuns a chance to talk?
Take that little business of Ulrich of Treffen, Patriarch of Aquileia. No need to lose ourselves in the maze that was Venice’s relationship with ecclesiastical power; let’s just say that for centuries religious disagreements were more commonly (and certainly clearly) expressed in political and military terms. Or, conversely, political and military projects almost always involved some highly placed representatives of the Prince of Peace.
Thus every Giovedi Grasso, to recall this glorious victory/humiliation, the public festivities involved the slaughter of the bull (the patriarch) and the fat pigs (the canons). Nice! I’m not referring to the aspect of blood, I’m referring to the aspect of insult. And everybody enjoyed it so much that it continued even after the 200 years were up.
Me, bludgeonless, I went to the Societa’ di Mutuo Soccorso dei Calafati e Carpentieri for their fritola-fest this afternoon. This mutual-aid society, formed by the erstwhile Caulkers and Carpenters of the Arsenal, makes a specialty of sometimes organizing little neighborhood parties, almost exclusively intended for the kids. Although — from what I’ve seen — each kid seems to arrive accompanied by a phalanx of voracious relatives, none of whom appears starved for fat or sugar, and with the phrase “Me First” invisibly tattooed on their foreheads. 
It was a wonderful little interlude, out in via Garibaldi. The fritole were the best I’ve ever had, delectable little blobs, not too big, containing just the right amount of candied fruit and covered with a little more than the right amount of sugar. The galani were heavenly, shards of deep-fried dough thinner than onionskin, under clouds of powdered sugar. If there’d been more of a crowd I’d certainly have gone back for thirds, and fourths, and fifths. But I didn’t want the guys to start thinking, What — her again?
Two men emerged from the hospital through an unidentified door and began walking down the fondamenta with us. Somebody was with them. Somebody who was going — in fact, had already gone — in a radically different direction.
