The word “Carnevale” means “farewell to meat” and, in the Christian calendar, is the last time to have a real binge before the forty days of Lent austerity which, this year, starts on Wednesday, March 6th and ends on Thursday, April 18th, Easter being on Sunday April 21st. It’s going to be truly a late Easter – the latest date Easter can fall upon is April 25th and one will have to wait until 2038 for that to happen again. Incidentally, the earliest date Easter can fall upon is March 22nd. We got pretty close to that date in 2016 when Easter fell on March 27th.
Easter is a moveable feast set according to the Christian liturgical calendar’s lunar cycles rather than its fixed feasts, like Christmas, which are set by the solar calendar. I don’t quite know why some liturgical feasts are fixed and others are moveable but I feel they may be a reflection of primeval pagan beliefs in which the Moon is regarded as the female principle as the Sun is the male source.
Parenthetically, the day on which Easter falls in any particular year is computed (as has been ever since the Council of Nicaea in 325) as the first Sunday after the first full Moon occurring on or after the vernal equinox of March 21st.
All over Italy Carnevale is celebrated with colourful processions, events and costumes. Those who have been to the carnivals of Viareggio and Venice will know what it’s like. It’s a great pity we don’t have a similar carnival season in the UK. It would certainly liven up things between the end of Christmas and the start of Easter. (Of course, there is one of Europe’s biggest carnivals at Notting hill but it should really be called a festival as it occurs outside the traditional carnival season).
Bagni di Lucca is no exception to the celebrations of ‘Carnevale’. Indeed, readers of my blog will have come across my descriptions of the various Carnevali we have had in the following posts, which are full of photos of happy participants in festive costume:
https://longoio.wordpress.com/2013/03/11/from-carnevale-to-pasqua/
https://longoio.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/il-carnevale-di-fornoli/
https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/its-carnival-time-again/
https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/two-carnivals-at-bagni-di-lucca-and-more/
https://longoio2.wordpress.com/2016/02/08/villas-carnival/
https://longoio3.com/2018/01/29/its-carnival-time-in-viareggio/
https://longoio3.com/2018/02/02/bagni-di-luccas-three-carnival-venues/
https://longoio3.com/2018/02/14/fabulous-fun-at-fornolis-carnival/
https://longoio3.com/2018/02/16/bread-and-confetti-at-bagni-di-luccas-casino/
https://longoio3.com/2018/02/22/loads-of-bread-and-confetti-at-bdls-casino/
What about Carnevale at Bagni di Lucca this year? In our area there will be two main events.
One is at the casino of Ponte di Serraglio with the inimitable presentation of Roberto Lucchesi:
The other is at Fornoli under the direction of Marco Nicoli who has asked me to be part of the jury in selecting the best costumes and acts. (Note the reference to the first lunar landing fifty years ago….)
A postscript: since there is still no Carnevale at the correct pre-Lenten time in Britain I experienced as a small child one of those times when one bursts into tears. It was in Italy when, as a child born and bred in the UK, but with an English-naturalised Italian-born mum, I was, in Milan, invited by my grandparents to a children’s Carnevale party. I turned up in my everyday clothes to discover that all the other children were dressed up for the occasion; the boys, for example, as Arlecchino or Donald Duck, the girls as the azure fairy or Colombina. When I overheard an adult saying to another, referring to my plain clothes: ‘why isn’t he in a costume?’ I began to sob ‘I want a costume too’. The occasion was saved by a cousin lending me his Arlecchino hat.
In retrospect, I excuse my grandparents but the situation for a child of not being properly ‘fancy-dressed’ for a special occasion can never be forgotten. Perhaps that’s why Sandra and I as adults, still love dressing up for special occasions like Rochester’s Dickens festival, or Lucca’s comics and games.
(At Rochester’s Dickens Festival somewhere in the past….)
I loved to go and do our cos play as it was such fun. In fact we even attended the Rochester Dickens Festival last year. The photo here brings back several memories we were vastly younger then I wore my school summer hat the boater onto which I’d placed a few cherries, a rose and a pink ribbon it was kind of liberating no school rules but worn happily not as part of a rigid school uniform! I had a knitted creature on my shoulder. The best Dickens events were when we dressed in proper costume and we even once entered a competition for the best costume. I never actually ever even knew about Carnevale so my dressing up for fun was established when I played charades in Richmond as a child at my friend’s birthday parties such jolly fun. This was followed later on at college on our topsy turvey day we held for charity I even met Brian Epstein to raise funds for a specific charity. We then did several Halloween events as well as comic events.
Thanks so much for your evocative comment.
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