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.

ITALIAN CARNIVAL MASK PULCINELLA Pulcinella 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.

ARLECCHINO Arlecchino 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, 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.

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.