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VENICE CARNIVAL
The Venice carnival came out due to the XVII century tradition, where nobility wore costumes to go out and get mixed with the ordinary people. Since then, masks are considered the most important elements of the carnival.
The Venice carnival lasts 10 days. During the nights, they hold dances in spacious rooms and the music groups, known as compagnie della calza, march in single file showing their costumes. Among the most popular ones we find “Los Antiguos” and “Los Ardientes”
The costumes worn are typical of the year 1700, and the maschera nobile are very common during this event, this is a kind of white mask that must be worn with black silk clothes and a three peaked hat. After 1979, other colours have been added to the costumes, but in the case of the masks, these are still (most of them) white, silver and golden.
In 1797, under Napoleon Bonaparte commands, the carnival was forbidden; it was reestablished in an official way in 1979. Since then, the event starts every December 26th of every year. |
Venice carnival costume
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Venice (in Italian Venezia, in Venetian Venexia) the city of the channels, is the capital of the Veneto region. It’s located on a bunch of islands which go along a lake, that is similar to a marsh, in the Adriatic Sea, between the mouths of the Po (south) and Piave (north) rivers, the northeast of Italy.
Venice is made of 120 small islands, which in time, are united by 800 bridges. We can reach Venice from land by traveling along the Liberty Bridge that leads us to Piazzale Roma.
Since its foundation, the city suffered the results of constant flooding. Nowadays the city is still in danger due to the flooding. In Spring and Autumn the water level increases twice a day and the San Marcos park gets flooded, because of that, wooden boards are placed allowing people to walk on them avoiding the water. The Italian government is preparing a project called Moses, to build mobile dikes which aim is to close their selves in case the level of the water increases quickly.
History
A long time ago this region was habited by the veneto people. When the Germans started invading Italy in the V century, the people of some cities (Padua among others) got shelter in these islands. They established and organized their own government ruled by 12 men, as many as islands they had. Almost since the beginning, this community was autonomous and named a dux or dogo. The position was for life. The dogos of the VIII and IX century knew how to keep their authority in the senate. They were very smart, knew the world they were facing, kept straight relationships with East and West and were aware of what they wanted. Their best period of expansion was in XV century.
Venice could take advantage of all the changes that took place in the West.
= Was a good decision to join the francos against the longobardos
= was a good decision to join the Byzantine Empire against the normandos
= Was a good decision to tolerate the Islam, in that way, during the war between the Arabians against the Byzantine Empire, the second one couldn’t traffic without risk and then the Venetian ships could travel to Alexandria, Beirut and Jaffa, making a monopoly of that market. |
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Venice is surrounded by small and not deep lakes, which was always a good defense . Many ships got stuck easily in the lakes since they didn’t know their depth, in this way the city had the image of a place inside of big walls. The walls of Venice are those dangerous sandbanks which are visible when the sea decreases. To reach this place from the Adriatic we had to know the steps, which in peace time, were indicated with files of sticks that had lights that were turned on at night.
The channels of Venice are very famous, they form streets that come from the Big Channel, this is like a big avenue in where we find most of the boats: big ones and small ones, the last ones are what we know as gondolas.
Art and culture
In Venice, Antonio Vivaldi was worn, the great composer, it was in March 4th of 1678 and passed away in Vienna, Austria in July 28th of 1741.
Since 1893 the city accommodates the Bienal of Venice, that includes the annual cinema festival called Mostra Internazionale d’Arte cinematográfica. |
Venice carnival mask
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The most popular event of Venice is the Carnival which tradition comes from XI century when Venice started to have sea power over the most important parts of the Mediterranean sea. The carnival was legally admitted as the supreme event during the XIII century. However, only in the XVIII century is where the Venice carnival will achieve their best period. Tourists and aristocrats of all Europe attended to this festivity, looking for entertainment and pleasure. With the decadence of Venice as one of the main sea and military authorities, the carnival lost its charms and it almost disappeared. Some of it was recovered at the en of the XX century, when the city started to be invaded by thousands of tourists, but anyway the best period of this festivity was left behind. The Venice carnival has as main characteristic the use of elaborated masks to cover the faces. Venice has had a wonderful art development, that’s why is one of the cities which has many architectonic beauties.
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