L'Italo-Americano

L'Italo-Americano THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 2026 www.italoamericano.org 4 F o r m u c h o f I t a l y ' s p a s t , social order was m o r e t h a n a n abstract idea, it w a s v i s i b l e i n c l o t h e s , speech, and gesture. People were expected to stay in their place, and they usually did: i n c i t i e s a n d s m a l l t o w n s alike, status came with rules a b o u t w h o c o u l d s p e a k freely, who had to show def- e r e n c e , a n d h o w a b o d y should behave in public. Carnevale grew inside that world. It's the reason why older descriptions of carnival often sound dramatic to us mod- ern readers: when communi- ties were more rigidly strati- fied, a few days of masks, parody, and noisy street the- ater could really feel like a controlled breach in the wall; today, in a society that is already more informal, and where transgression happens year-round online and in real life, Carnevale rarely "reverses" everyday life in any literal way. However, its o l d e r , o r i g i n a l i d e a s t i l l stands, because this handful of days in mid-winter, usu- ally between the end of Jan- u a r y a n d m i d - F e b r u a r y , remain for many Italians a set time where behaving dif- ferently in public, and when exaggeration becomes the accepted language of com- ment and critique. It is important to contex- tualize Carnevale, because – truly – it was never only a p a r t y , a n d s t i l l i s n ' t . I n M e d i e v a l a n d E a r l y Modern Italy, it was one of the few moments when ordinary people could take up space, make noise, and t e s t b o u n d a r i e s w i t h o u t immediately being punished for it. And while that per- mission was limited, often negotiated, and sometimes w i t h d r a w n , i t w a s r e a l e n o u g h t o r e q u i r e r u l e s . Anthropologists have a use- ful description for this kind of sanctioned detour from n o r m a l l i f e : a b o u n d e d interval in which the usual social script loosens, then snaps back into place. Vic- t o r T u r n e r c a l l e d s u c h m o m e n t s " l i m i n a l , " s u s - pended on a threshold, nei- ther ordinary time nor pure disorder, but something in between. Carnevale, at least historically, fits that pattern because it is a shared agree- ment to behave differently, and a shared understanding t h a t t h e a g r e e m e n t w i l l expire. The mask sits at the cen- ter of that agreement, and not because it looks pretty i n a p h o t o g r a p h , b u t b e c a u s e a n o n y m i t y changes how people speak and how they move. When faces disappear, recognition falters, and with it some of the automatic policing that keeps hierarchy in place. Of c o u r s e , i n e q u a l i t y d i d n ' t vanish, but for a short win- dow, it could be played with. The mask created ambigui- ty, and ambiguity created room to perform versions of oneself that ordinary life discouraged. Once you look at it this w a y , t h e " e x c e s s " o f Carnevale reads very much l i k e a s p e c i f i c s t y l e o f p u b l i c p e r f o r m a n c e : appetite, sexuality, ridicule, and noise became legible a n d s h a r e d ; e v e n t h e rougher elements that show up repeatedly in European carnival traditions – mock t r i a l s , s y m b o l i c p u n i s h - m e n t s , r i t u a l i n s u l t s – worked by turning social pressure into theater. The result could be cathartic, s o m e t i m e s u g l y , o f t e n funny, and almost always highly recognizable to the people inside it. None of this, however, implies a single, tidy pur- pose, and it would be a mis- take to romanticize carnival as pure popular resistance; y e t t h e p a t t e r n i s s t r o n g enough that cultural histori- ans returned to it again and again. Mikhail Bakhtin's classic account of carnival culture, for instance, treats it as a space where hierarchy i s t e m p o r a r i l y u n s e t t l e d through laughter and the body. A public rehearsal of freedom, staged inside lim- its. Limits that were always there, and authorities knew it: Carnevale was tolerated p r e c i s e l y b e c a u s e i t h a d e d g e s . T h i s l o n g d a n c e between permission and c o n t r o l i s o n e r e a s o n Carnevale survived. Banning it outright was often unreal- istic; containing it was more practical. And because car- nival actually changed pub- l i c b e h a v i o r , a u t h o r i t i e s treated it as something to manage, not something to repress. The roots of such logic are as old as history itself or, at least, older than Chris- tianity. If it's true that the c a l e n d a r t h a t f r a m e s Carnevale is Catholic, the idea of a licensed interrup- t i o n i s n o t u n i q u e t o t h e Church and Roman festi- Carnevale: Italy's ritualized rebellion, when order steps aside and play takes power FRANCESCA BEZZONE NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS CONTINUED TO PAGE 6 The magic of the Carnevale di Venezia is connected to the richness of the costumes and the mystery of anonymity created by the masks (Photo: Jadersalomao23/Dreamstime)

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