Italian Carnival

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Italian Carnival

• Hundred and hundreds of years ago, the followers
  of the Catholic religion in Italy started the
  tradition of holding a wild costume festival
  right before the first day of Lent. Because
  Catholics are not supposed to eat meat during
  Lent, they called their festival, carnevale
  which means to put away the meat. As time
  passed, carnivals in Italy became quite famous
  and in fact the practice spread to France, Spain,
  and all the Catholic countries in Europe. Then as
  the French, Spanish, and Portuguese began to take
  control of the Americas and other parts of the
  world, they brought with them their tradition of
  celebrating carnival.

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ITALIAN CARNIVAL MASK

• PULCINELLAPulcinella is a character that
  emerges powerfully from the Commedia dellArte.
  Philosophical, eternally melancholic dreamer as
  only a representant person of the napolitan
  culture could be, Pulcinella has spirit of his
  own. No tension or despair, his melancholic
  approach to life makes him coasts problems,
  situations, life adventure and, at the end,
  simply getting out of everything, in the same
  simply manner as how he got involved. His costume
  is poor and white.He wears a black mask and the
  coppolone hat.

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ITALIAN CARNIVAL MASK

• ARLECCHINOArlecchino is a poor character. He
  wears a colourfull pached costume. A poem of the
  masks tells that all the regional masks have
  sewed a piece of the dress. Arlecchino is a
  simple character. With his simpaty he outwits all
  the arrogant and greedly personages. He has an
  anarchic kind of behavior, he is always hungry
  and without money. He is the engine of the action
  in the story of the Commedia dell'arte. The
  first actor that played with the Arlecchino's
  mask was Alberto Naselli in Bergamo, 1572.

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ITALIAN CARNIVAL MASK

• DOCTOR PESTE
• This mask is very famous and has a particular
  form. It is white with a long beak made of
  pasta and used by doctors to protect themselves
  from the contamination plague.
• The doctors wear a long black dress.
•  

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ITALIAN CARNIVAL MASK

• BRIGHELLA
• Brighella Cavicchio from ValBrembana is his whole
  
• name.
• This mask represents a cunning, clever servant
• that can help his master, but even deceives him.
• He is an unscropulouse character and he is able
  to
• do every kind of job he can become a barman, a
• soldier or a thief. He is the fulest servant of
  the
• Commedia dell'Arte.
• He is a mask from Bergamo Alta. He wears a
• strange green lined shirt, large trousers, a
  short
• cloak and a funny hat. His way of speaking is
• dialect from Bergamo.