Carnival and masks, from the origins to the theatre
- Lisa Gaboardi
- 24 hours ago
- 5 min read
It is believed, with good reason, that Carnival originates from the Saturnalia, ancient Roman festivals in honor of Saturn, the god of sowing. Saturnalia was an important ancient Roman festival, celebrated from December 17th to 23rd, in honor of the god Saturn and the Golden Age. It was a time of rejoicing, banquets, gift-giving, and social upheaval, with slaves served by their masters, significantly influencing the traditions of modern Christmas. Carnival begins on December 26th and ends on Shrove Tuesday. Saturnalia was an important ancient Roman festival, celebrated from December 17th to 23rd, in honor of the god Saturn and the Golden Age. It was a time of rejoicing, banquets, gift-giving, and social upheaval, with slaves served by their masters, significantly influencing the traditions of modern Christmas. Carnival begins on December 26th and ends on Shrove Tuesday. Celebrated on the winter solstice, they honored Saturn, god of agriculture, and evoked the Golden Age, a mythical era of equality and abundance. Courts, schools, and work were suspended. Slaves enjoyed temporary freedom and were served at table by their masters, a symbol of primordial equality. They wore the pilleus (the cap of freed slaves) and colorful clothes. It was customary to exchange gifts, particularly wax candles (cerei) and terracotta statuettes (sigillaria). The "King" of the Saturnalia was elected a princeps or rex saturnalicius to lead the festivities.
The Saturnalia represented a time of maximum license and social disorder, comparable to today's Carnival, where the festive atmosphere masked the social tensions of the city.
In medieval carnival celebrations, in addition to the "Day of Fools," another highly disturbing event emerged: the "Donkey Festival." During this festival, the donkey was even brought into church, where it occupied a place of honor, sometimes even on the altar, and received tokens of devotion. In such a context, the brute forces of nature, symbolized by the donkey, supplanted the saints themselves. In both cases, these were undoubtedly excesses; but these sacrilegious parodies, extraordinary in an era of widespread intolerance, were tolerated because they were unconsciously considered beneficial for society as a whole. A historical consideration becomes of considerable importance at this point. When, in the late Middle Ages, the great and choral grotesque festivals began to be curbed and then suppressed, there was a "resurgence" of witchcraft and necromancy. Especially in the Renaissance, considered a radiant age of human intelligence, witchcraft experienced a genuine expansion on dimensions unknown in the Middle Ages. As the ancestral, trivial, and crude celebrations, harmless by their very nature and long legal, gradually disappeared, delirious "witches' Sabbaths" increasingly emerged, where everything happened "backwards," somewhat like the "Day of Fools" at Carnival, but now devoid of the landmarks that essentially regulated them.
Masking oneself means dressing up or covering one's face, often with carnival attire, to assume a fictional identity, disguise oneself, or entertain oneself. It is an act that allows one to conceal one's real self and impersonate characters, heroes, or fantastical figures, temporarily freeing oneself from customary social roles. Since the Middle Ages, this tradition has been closely linked to Carnival, becoming its symbol.
Masks.
Regarding masks, it's worth noting that they often carry apotropaic meanings, meaning that those who wear them assume the characteristics of the "supernatural" or "bestial" being represented by the mask. If the mask depicts a skeleton, the allegory of the souls of the dead returning to visit the living emerges, or the exhortation pulvis es et polverem recerteris (dust you are and to dust you shall return) simply shines through. But many masks contain something else, much more profound. The deformities typical of bestiality are legitimately displayed and externalized during Carnival, and it's safe to assume that these "bestial" if not "demonic" masks, almost always chosen with complete freedom, publicly reveal the true nature of their wearers, without either the wearer or the spectator being fully aware of it. In this case, the mask, which should conceal the individual's external face, ends up revealing their true inner self!
Masks have fascinated mankind since ancient, tribal times, but masks as we know them today originate in the Middle Ages, and until the late 1900s, the masks of the Commedia dell'Arte enlivened carnival in the squares. A mask par excellence has its origins in folkloristic and legendary evolution and differentiates itself from other characters in the Commedia. It was the mask par excellence, and we are talking about Harlequin. Much has been written, said, and even performed about Harlequin, but let's spend a few words on his origins in legends and folklore and on the role of masks.
The Mask of Hellequin
In the medieval West, masks played a fundamental role in folkloric traditions, linked to various moments of the calendar, ritual manifestations of the "cycle of life," and charivari. Ecclesiastical culture has, from the beginning, tenaciously condemned masquerades and masks as a dual sign, concealing the wearer and evoking the other, whose appearance the mask sketches. The Church conceives the mask as an imago, a figure that refers to something else and falls within the category of mirror images, inducing a true transformation in the wearer. This similarity to the mask is defined as illegitimate since the only similarity permitted is that of man born "in the image of God": masking is diabolical, and in the medieval West, the devil and the mask tend to be equivalent, since both have the ability to transfigure men and themselves. The Church, therefore, reading masquerades as a deception of theological truth, decrees their irrevocable condemnation and persecution.
Medieval masks have not survived to the present day, and we know them only through descriptions in texts and images, which, however, come almost exclusively from official religious culture. Among the most interesting sources, a prominent role is played by the miniatures accompanying manuscript 146 in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, an interpolation of Gervais du Bus's Roman de Fauvel by Chaillou de Pestain, dating back to the first half of the 14th century.
From the 13th century onwards, the Mesnie Hellequin was transformed and reduced, in theatrical productions, to its representative par excellence: Hellequin, who, in keeping with the norms of medieval theater, wears a mask, since only diabolical characters were allowed to wear one. Hellequin, from leader of the army of the dead, gradually mutates, transforming, in 16th-century theater, into the figure of Harlequin, whose name and horned mask remain the only traces of his ancestor, the king of the dead.
And returning to theater, I can't help but tell you about Dario Fo's Harlequin. In fact, I'll let you enjoy it directly on YouTube. Click the link, while I leave you to consult another of his great works, "Hellequin, Harlekin, Arlecchino," and the entire archive of Fo's performances of this spectacular character.
Happy Mardi Gras everyone.
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