Today it's the last day of Venice Carnival for this year, the city has been living a few crazy weeks full of mask parties and madness.
But it hasn’t always been easy for the venetians to freely celebrate this event.
The origin of the Venice Carnival is very old: the first document which mentions the word “Carnevale” dates back to 1094, in which the venetian oligarchy concedes the citizens a few days of crazy partying.
But maybe the Doges, Venice's governors, didn’t expect so much binging, that’s why they created in 1268 a law to ban the use of masks in
The moral decadency and the unstoppable desire of partying during the Serenissima Repubblica reached such an extreme that in 1458 a new law was necessary to forbid men from entering the monasteries with womens' masks…
In order to control the strong increase of masked people during most of the year, a new law in 1608 was created ordering all the venetian citizens to wear masks ONLY during the Carnival period, with sentences till 2 years of jail.
Outside Carnival period, it was also forbidden to play drums before midday and any kind of dancing.
As many venetian aristocrats used to gamble wearing a mask, because they didn't want to be recognized by their creditors, in 1703 a new law forbiding the use of masks while gambling was introduced.
After the fall of the Republic of Venice, since 1797, first the French and then the Austrians completely forbade celebratin Carnival in Venice.
Only two centuries later, in 1979, thanks to the initiative of some citizen associations, the Carnival tradition was revived and celebrated again, becoming what it is nowadays, the most famous Carnival of Veneto and Italy.
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