Everybody Loves a Carnevale

For those unfamiliar with it, Italian Carnevale is something like a hybrid cross of America's Halloween and Brazil's (and New Orleans's) carnival. In the weeks leading up to Lent and culminating with a great feast on Shrove Tuesday (mardi gras), children dress up and, with their friends, parents, and relatives, celebrate everything whimsical and beautiful that life has to offer before the austere fast of the Lenten weeks ahead. Well, traditionally, anyway, that's what Carnevale meant. It also meant dressing in the costumes of commedia dell'arte (Italian improvised Renaissance theater) characters -- Arlecchino a notorious favourite -- and bestowing luck and warm wishes on your neighbours in the form of a shower of paper confetti and twirly shooting stars. The last bit is still true: barely after arriving in Venice yesterday for Carnival celebrations, my boyfriend and I were ambushed by the paper trailings of a young boy near the stand at which we purchased our Carnival masks. I took it as a good omen.

As long as we're on the topic, tradition has also named Venice the heart and central nervous system of the Italian Carnival since 1162, when la Serenissima claimed victory over Aquileia, and its citizens rejoiced with masked balls, drinking, dancing, and general merriment in Saint Mark's square. It wasn't until the Renaissance that Carnival became a more widespread feast recognised and legitimised - to an extent - by the Catholic Church and celebrated in other Italian urban centers as well. Still, to this day, you can't say Carnevale without saying Venezia in the same breath; Saint Mark's protected pride has basked in this fame for centuries, even if from behind elaborate masks.

You might expect it to be prepared for the immense crowd and massive flux of tourists that arrive each year to participate in the feast. You'd be wrong.

A simple Google image search of "Venice Carnival" yields an overwhelming and almost embarrassing (but most certainly breathtaking) array of traditional Carnevale masks in all shapes, sizes, and colours, and their corresponding larger-than-life costumes. You'll find them against the background of Saint Mark's Square, the Canal Grande, inside the Teatro La Fenice, and posing with gondolieri and civilians alike.

What you find almost no evidence of are the infinite throngs occupying every atom of free space in the city's tight streets and over its bridges, the people shoving each other in all directions to get by, or to get ahead, or simply to get out of the way, the children sitting on their parents' shoulders just to see the lip of the stage at the center of Saint Mark's, or the severe lack of crossing guards or pedestrian traffic direction officials.

Quite simply: Carnevale in Venice is a prestigious tradition, a vibrant celebration, a happy feast. What it isn't, by any means, is organised.

In other words, it's very Italian.

We discovered this somehow unexpected reality early: a projected 20-minute walk to Saint Mark's turned into a 2-hour struggle cramped like cattle in a herd of disgruntled locals and tourists (Italian and international alike) through the city's winding streets and, finally, into its main square, which was gloriously and very surprisingly not bare, but not at all as busy as we both thought it might be given the difficulty with which we reached it. It seemed like we'd waited two hours in line to get into a club that wasn't anywhere near filled to capacity -- and we'd suffered (emotionally) doing it. For no particular reason: there were beautiful things to see in Saint Mark's, but nothing that justified the two-hour wait to gain admission to it. We missed those while trapped in the huddle, though we'd arrived at least an hour early for a number of them.

The logistical flaws in our trek were obvious: there was no bidirectional traffic flow, no planned itineraries for entrances and exits from key sites, no clear signalisation, no opportunities for respite from the crowd, for breaks, for redirection. Once you chose to follow the horde, Venice left you no way out. More interesting to me, however, were the reactions of those sharing our plight. They ranged from sympathy to outrage, from impatience to aggression, from mild disapproval to diatribe. We heard some winning comments:

"It's all because of these tourists. They don't know where to go and they block up all the streets waiting for people to make way" (said as four lanes of human bodies going in one direction were forced to thin and yield to two lanes of human bodies passing in the other direction).

"People have no consideration. They're animals" (said by a person occupying the space of three with his medium-sized dog, large bag, and protrudent umbrella).

"It's useless trying to create more rows of people to move forward. Everyone should just keep to their right, in single file, and let others pass. Then everyone would get through" (said by someone who, at the first possible opportunity, forced his way through the throng of people -- markedly to its left).

"There's really no need to push me. We're all going to the same place" (said by a person inadvertently or perhaps very voluntarily pushing the person in front of her).

"This is so disorganised, it's an embarrassment. Why didn't they think of unidirectional itineraries or other ways to encourage traffic flow? Where are the vigili?" (said by a local who most likely had the opportunity to sit on the committee that would eventually make decisions about pedestrian traffic flow and hire the vigili necessary to ensure it).

I can't say I disagreed with anything I heard. In theory, they were all correct. In theory, they all had very valid points. In practice, they were as Italian as they come: lament the state of the economy, but please, avoid paying your taxes. Lament the state of the environment, but please do continue to drag your massive cars through the country's most important and most revered public spaces. Lament the lack of organisation and proper care, but do refrain from getting involved to improve or prevent it. It's not just an Italian way of being, but it is a very common mentality among people here, especially among those who have never left home and haven't seen anything worse than pedestrian traffic stopped up on a Carnival Sunday in Venice.

Of course, my current lamenting falls in line with theirs. Thank goodness, however, it ended when we reached Saint Mark's and found ourselves whirled up in the most spectacular splendours of the Venetian Carnival, teatro itinerante or not; sfilata missed or not. So did everyone else's. The only thing more Italian than criticising others and complaining about one's state of misery is the profound enjoyment of life in its simplest manifestations, and without particular prompting or the creation of hype. It's this consistent joie de vivre in the face of so much ugliness that keeps me coming back here and searching out new experiences in which both poles of Italian mentality and behaviour are exposed.

The true Carnevale is both things, too: a bureaucratic nightmare, and a stunning tribute to life. Or, traditionally: a moment of gratitude for life's blessings, and a reminder of its perennial curses.