Piazza Duomo, in Milan, Italy, by night, with Christmas decoration. Picture by Giovanni Dall'Orto, december 12 2006.

Boxing day is also a bank holiday in Italy. The festivities naturally extend to the end of the year and then to the Epifania (Epiphany), which is more commonly called "la Befana", from the name of the benevolent hag who, over the night between the 5th and 6th of January, is said to bring sweets and gifts to good children, and charcoal to bad ones.

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Viareggio Carnival 2007.
Image courtesy of Angelo Romano.

The first Viareggio carnival parade was held in 1873, when some wealthy middle-class men decided to organize a parade of floats adorned with flowers; a number of local citizens, as a sign of protest, then decided to put on masks in order to show their refusal of high taxes they were forced to pay. The first float to win the parade, in 1883, was named I Quattro Mori (The Four Moors), an accurately representation of the homonymous Livorno statue. The carnival continued to gain popularity within the years, and in 1949 a football youth tournament, called Torneo di Viareggio, was first organized as a collateral manifestation.

The official mascot of the Viareggio carnival is the burlamacco, first depicted in 1931 by Uberto Bonetti. Since 2001, all the floats are built in an apposite seat, called cittadella del Carnevale (Carnival citadel), located on the northern side of the Viareggio city territory.

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Maschere al Carnevale di Venezia 2008.
Image courtesy of Roberto Vicario.

Carnival was outlawed by the fascist government in the 1930s. It was not until a modern mask shop was founded in the 1980s that Carnival enjoyed a revival. Carnival starts around two weeks before Ash Wednesday and ends on Shrove Tuesday (Fat Tuesday or Mardi Gras), the day before Ash Wednesday.

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Carnival of Ivrea, Sfilata dei carri da geto (Parade of the horse-cars taking part in the orange battle).
Image courtesy of Laurom.

Another important Italian carnival is the Historical Carnival of Ivrea, mostly known for its Battle of the Oranges. It is valued as one of the most ancient carnivals in the world: during the year 1000 a miller's wife killed the tyrant of the city, King Arduino; from that episode began a civil war between the oppressed people and the king's supporters, finally won by people, and until now every year the citizens remember their liberation with the Battle of the Oranges. Here, teams of "Aranceri" by foot shoot oranges representing ancient arrows and stones against Aranceri on carts, representing Arduino's allies. During the French occupation of Italy in the nineteenth century the Carnival of Ivrea had been modified by adding representatives of the French army who help the miller's wife.

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