New Orleans has its Mardi Gras, replete with the famous beads tossed from balconies and colorful floats denoting no less than twenty different parades devoted to the day, but Italy has its Carnevale. Heralding the beginning of the Lenten season that ushers in Easter, it is the biggest and most celebrated festival of the year in Italy. Considering that Italy has many things to celebrate (i.e., Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Sophia Loren, two volcanoes, proscuitto D’Palma, and the finest leather goods the world over — for starters), that is quite a big deal! Stemming from the Latin “carne” and “vale,” the word Carnevale means a “farewell to meat” for the forty days preceding Lent, for Catholics worldwide.
The history of Carnevale (the Carnival of Venice) has its roots in the 7th century A.D., when the Senate of the Republic of Serenissima issued an edict declaring the day before Lent a public holiday.
Down though the centuries until the present day, the Carnival in Venice is still celebrated. Its age-old custom of parades featuring joyous, frolicking people whose faces are ornately masked, still ranks #1 of all the cities in Italy, and served as the paradigm for our Mardi Gras. The heart of this annual event in Venice is the Piazza San Marco. There, with music, dancing, food and wine, performing artists, and spectacular shows and games, adults and children alike make merry.
Other cities in Italy also compete with Carnivals of their own to celebrate the season. The city of Viareggio in Tuscany ranks second in spectacular parades and masked, costumed revelers dancing in the streets. One particular city named Iverea offers a peculiar but heartwarming custom in addition to the usual parades. Called a Battiglia di Arancia (the Battle of Oranges), local teams gather to throw oranges at each other! This occurs after all the merry-making is done, and the custom stems from Medieval times, when starving peasants were given beans to eat by the aristocracy-in-charge. The peasants threw the beans into the street in protest. Later, this event was integrated into the festival and the beans were replaced with oranges.
Acireale in the Sicilian province of Catania has added floral decorations and ornate floats to their festival, since their first recorded celebration took place in 1594. Like the Ivereans, the people also threw not only oranges but lemons too (thus causing us to ponder the old adage about life giving you lemons!). The fruit tossing practice was outlawed 20 years later, whether due to a waste of good food or two many conked noggins, history does not tell us. It does state, however, that in 1880, floats became an integral part of the festival. From these floats, the noble class threw food to the locals in the street. At that point, it had become customary for the patrons of the Carnival to throw eggs and vegetables at each other; it is now more acceptable to throw sparkling confetti.
When the custom came to New Orleans, Americans tossed confetti, golden balls, and streamers down upon the majestically moving floats, as the streets themselves became an explosion of joyous humanity. I am not sure who began the practice of tossing the purple, green, and golden beaded necklaces from the balconies lining the streets, but I am sure that a lot of men enjoyed this procedure, or at least, the sights that went with it!
As we celebrate the forty days of abstinence from meat, symbolizing the forty days that Jesus Christ fasted in the desert, some of the faithful may stray from the tenets of the Catholic Church. They may have an occasional hamburger or steak, and risk going to hell before their next confession (just kidding: entry into hell requires sins of a much more grievous nature than breaking one’s fast). Maybe this is the reason why Italians throw fruit, vegetables, and eggs, to ward against temptation in the form of more hearty “earthly delights.”
