Venice

For 742 years now, hundreds of masks and personifying costumes have been floating around the city of Venice, resembling a kind of human ephemera. For a few days before the Easter fast, both the townsfolk and visitors to the city on the lagoon change their identity. Maskers and costume designers are on hand. The original masks are made of papier-macher, a mixture of paper and pap. This immaculate base is formed in several established volumes. One of the most widely covered masks in the media is the 'cassanova'. Apart from an ominous resemblance to an executioner or a medieval healer, the mask has the particularity of "camouflaging" the tone of the wearer's voice, ensuring a perfect disguise.

This year, the theme of the Venice carnival was "Ottocento - da Senso a Sissi - la Cita delle donne", a title that heteroclitely brings together two cultural references: Princess Sissi of Austria, whose 19th century elegance became iconic not only for the fashion of the time, and the movie Sens, directed by Luchino Visconti in 1954. This year's carnival also has a celebratory dimension, marking 150 years since the unification of Italy.

The Kingdom of Veneto has a memorable motto: "Pax tibi, Marce, evangelista meus".