Dark designs, midnight trysts. Alyse's Venice seethes with shadows and not-quite-forgotten demons ready to rise from the crumbling mortar of the great city's ruin. And the Venetian's themselves? There is no more need of masks. There is no one left to spy them slipping through collapsed hall on their way to satiate their darker desires. The Venice we know today lost its masks once, too. Carnivale was outlawed in the 1700s. In 1979, Venice decided use the ancient festival as a locus for its cultural revival. The arts of mask making and costumery saw a resurgence, not as a way to disguise guilty parties, but a way to celebrate the traditions of one of the worlds great city-states. photo credit: Stefano Montagner Mocking propriety, scorning modesty. But how did the famed custom of Venetian disguise arise? The traditional masks enter the history books in the 13th century as a cover for young men tossing perfume or rose water-filled eggs at ladies—something that had to be prohibited by law. As anything with such a long history, the masks have taken on symbolic traditions of their own. The Bauta Possibly derived from the Veneto-Italian bogeyman the “bau-bao” (although there are other theories), the traditional Bauta was a white full-coverage mask with a protruding lower half for ease of eating and drinking. It was typically worn by both genders with a tricorne hat and a black cloak. The Moretta Known also as the Mute Maid Servant, the Moretta “Dark” mask was an oval mask of black velvet with eye holes, but no mouth, worn with a wide brimmed hat and/or a veil. The “silent” aspect arose from the fact that the wearer held the mask to her face by grasping a button between her teeth. The mask was often used by upper class women visiting convents. The Gnaga The Gnaga comprised of a small mask sometimes mimicking a woman’s features coupled with women’s dress and was most popularly used by young men seeking homosexual encounters. Some claim the name comes from the term “gnao” comparing the exaggerated falsettos employed with the costume to a cat’s meow. The Mattaccino This was the mask favored by those men with their egg-launching slingshots. It is a clown-like mask and the costume generally included a pouch for carrying said eggs. The Volto or Larva The most typical Venetian mask, the “Larva” name may derive from the Latin for ghost. Volto simply means “face.” Originally, a partial mask, it now refers to the ubiquitous full-coverage mask. Mecio Della Peste The Plague Doctor mask is a costume derived from the original sanitary mask of the plague doctors developed by Charles de Lorme in the 17th century. The original masks had crystal disks in the eye holes as well, causing them to look like they sported spectacles. The costume version usually includes the long black cloak and hat and the white stick used for handling patients. Masks of the Commedia Dell’arte Commedia Dell’arte contributed heavily to the look of Carnival, contributing the masks of its stock characters to the cast of revelers. You can find these masks in an earlier post on my blog. If you love all things Venice, or simply need a good escape into a dark cobblestone alleyway, check out my series THE SHADES OF VENICE on Amazon! Members of my Reader Group get free books, recipes, videos, and more. Join the fun and get a taste of surreal adventure at www.tonyamacalino.com. **This post was originally published on Fangtastic Books, May 10, 2012
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