HH&F Magazine

work [on nearby Murano Island], elevated the artistic life. All trades and crafts flourished. Having a mega party in a city where masks were a way of life, engaged the creative spirit to bring new colours and shapes to each carnival. After 400 years of mask and the costume making, the artisans were recognised as artists, and on April 10th, 1436, mask makers [mascherari], were granted the statutes of their own guild, placing them on same level with the painters.

While mask making was not a strange trade to neighbouring France, masks, having a political role, was unique to Venice democratic system where each masked citizen had an equal political voice and vote as his neighbour.

Wearing masks meant freedom, yet “too much” of this freedom brought [much needed] legislated restrictions: • masked people were not allowed to carry weapons [police had the right to search and enforce the rule]; • masked people were not allowed to “throw eggs” [from balconies, at women passing below despite that they were filled with rosemary water and were a simple call for attention or romance]; • masks were not allowed in nuns’ convents; • masks were prohibited on most religious holidays; • masks were prohibited for dealers in the gambling houses...

By 1600 Venice was having 6-month per year “mask season”. Doing that for hundreds of years, got to the better part of the population, even priests and nuns joining the crowds, masked of course. Crime, promiscuity, prostitution and gambling became a fact of life for Venice of 1600’s and 1700’s. Fortunes were gambled and squandered daily in “ Il Ridotto” establishments [the ancestors of modern casinos] and Venice notoriety of “everything goes” was well established in Europe. spring 2013 page 19