Ancestor City Of Venice Discovered By Satellite Imaging

VENETIAN CARNIVAL

Carnival was a pagan ritual marking the end of the old year on winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. With Christianity it became the time when confessions were made in preparation for Lent. And Carnival probably derives from old Italian “Carne levare”, a farewell to meat - and flesh! - before the rigours of Lenten fast. Eventually, it evolved in a relatively short period of merrymaking which reached its climax the day before Ash Wednesday.

Well, in Venice Carnival began on Boxing-day, the day after Xmas, and ended with Mardi Gras...The ceremonies accompanying the event were just extraordinary:

The flight of the angel was an acrobatic stunt where an equilibrist had to jump from the bell tower, slide on a rope and end in the arms of the doge assisting on the balcony to give him a bunch of flowers. Bullfights instead took place in the campi (the squares of Venice).
Consider that in February 1789 the doge Paolo Renier died and the announcement of his death was postponed, so as not to spoil the Carnival!

But masks and the same gay spirit lasted almost all year round. The mask was used as a disguise to go to parties, brothels, gambling houses, nunneries.
From early date, tourists reporting on Venice included enthusiastic or disgusted comments on her courtesans. The most notorious picture of Venetian licentiousness is to be found in the memoirs of Giacomo Casanova.
Coffee houses multiplied. There were dozen around the Piazza, including Florian which opened in 1720 and Quadri in 1775.

So, 18th C Venice was pervaded by a spirit of festivity, and light-heartedness which derived from the absence of any serious purpose arising from political involvement.