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The Carnival
The Venice Carnival is the most internationally known festival celebrated in Venice, and is also one of the oldest.
The origin of this celebraton of fashination, elegance, colours, madness and mistery goes back to the year 1296, when the Serenissima Republic declared the Shrove Tuesday (mardi gras) a city holiday. At that time, the celebrations lasted for six weeks, from the Boxing Day to Mardi Gras, when the end of the Carnival announced the beginning of the Lent. The celebrations reached their peak on Carnival Thursday and ended the day before Ash Wednesday, even if the permission of wearing masks and disguises was often given from the beginning of October and it was not unusual to attend parties and banquets during Lent.
It was probably thanks to this period of bonanza that the idea of Venice as a city of pleasure and enjoyment was born. During the Carnival everything was permitted and everyone used to wear a mask behind which any social difference was temporarily abolished. Carnival feasts involved the whole city by breaking all the rules of society. This represented a period of gaiety and amusement, but it was for sure also a way for the Serenissima Republic to give the poorest classes the illusion of becoming similar to the more powerful even if just for a very short period.
The celebrations for the Carnival were abolished after nearly 500 years by Napoleon in 1797 and were reinstated only when the city was submitted to Austria.
Nowadays the Carnival still represents the main attractions of the city of Venice, with masks coming from all over the world and the city center crowded by many thousands of people a day. The celebrations last for a couple of weeks, and it's always a period of real fun, together with a little bit of myth and magical athmosphere. On respect for tradition, the end of the celebrations is still represented by the image of Carnival burnt in St. Mark Square, with a firework show on the water at midnight.
During the years 1970s-1980s the Carnival celebrations experienced a period of decline: in Venice no more parties were organized, and the almost 900 years tradition was left at the mercy of disappearance.
It was only thanks to Burano that the festival survived. For this reason soon the Burano Carnival ("El Carneval de Buran") became an unmissable event for Buranelli, Venetians, people coming from all over the Veneto and of course tourists.
Nowadays Burano still represents a focal point of the annual official program made by the Venice Carnival Organization (link: http://www.carnevale.venezia.it).