The Carnival of Venice, if not the greatest, is surely best known for its appeal to and the mystery that continues to hold even now that 900 years have elapsed from the first document that refers to this famous festival.
Who has not heard of that? They have memories of the festivitiesof the Carnival since 1094, under the doge Vitale Falier, in a document that speaks of public entertainment in the dayspreceding Lent. The official document declaring a public holiday in the Carnival in 1296 when the Senate declared public holiday on the last day of Lent.
If Carnival was a time much longer and even began the first Sunday of October to the day after Epiphany intensified, culminating in the days preceding Lent, the carnival lasts about ten days coinciding with the pre-but the Easter Carnival feverbegins long before indeed, perhaps it is not unfair to say that, in Venice, the Carnival fever never ceases during the year. A subtle euphoria creeps through the narrow streets of the most beautiful city in the world and grows imperceptibly, as naturally salt water, blurs the outlines of things, suggests the mysteries and atmosphere of times gone by.
Venice became the top European school of pleasure and play,the mask and irresponsibility. Venice became the great virtue ofmetamorphosis and the carnival was (and still is) his exploits.
For many days a year, the world seemed not to offer more resistance the desires became feasible and there was no thought or act that is not possible.
