Dance parties, allegorical parades, historical processions and ancestral rites: each city has its own way of interpreting Carnival;
in some cases local traditions offer unique and evocative events.
Here are 6 festivals not to be missed from north to south of Italy.
The Sappada Carnival, in the Friulian Dolomites, is one of the oldest and most evocative in the Alps and a moment of great celebration and joy for the inhabitants of the village, who find themselves parading through the streets of the centre.
Many wear the 'Rollate', an anthropomorphic mask with heavy dark sheepskin fur and a dark hood adorned with a puff of red wool.
Tied to the waist is a chain with cowbells, which ring with every step, attracting attention.
The 'Rollate' is an austere character, who inspires fear due to his bear-man appearance;
it is the symbol of the power and strength of nature and represents the winter that is about to end.
During the Carnival the 'Rollate' takes part in parades and processions and enjoys chasing children and passers-by, as well as being the protagonist of some challenges, such as the competition of who can resist his embrace for the longest.
The Carnival of Madonna di Campiglio is fairy-tale: from 11 to 16 February the Trentino town is transformed into a stage where everyone can be an actor and immerse themselves in history at the time of the Habsburg Court and Princess Sissi.
You travel through time admiring the passage of carriages, ladies and hussars on horseback, skiing with ladies-in-waiting and officers in full uniform and tasting the desserts of the Viennese pastry shop.
The culmination of the party is the masked ball with the full Court in the Hofer Hall, in memory of Princess Sissi's stays in Madonna di Campiglio, welcomed by the celebrating population.
The inaugural procession is also evocative when numerous figures parade in a sumptuous procession of carriages, welcomed by two wings of the crowd.
The carriages pulled by teams of horses pave the way for the imperial carriage, which transports Franz Joseph and Princess Sissi back to Madonna di Campiglio.
In Verona we celebrate the 'Bacanal del gnoco', a Carnival which has an ancient and curious history: it was born in 1531 during a popular revolt due to a terrible famine;
to avoid the worst, some citizens were appointed who, at their expense, distributed food to the poor of San Zeno.
Since then the protagonist of the 'gnocchi bacchanal' on the last Friday of Carnival is the 'Daddy of the Gnoco' who rode a donkey to the Podestà to invite him to eat a plate of gnocchi which were then distributed to the celebrating people.
Today this ritual has become choral: the program of events of this great festival is full of masked balls and parades of allegorical floats, including the cavalcade of Tomaso Da Vico, creator of the ritual, and, of course, on Thursday 8th and Friday February 9th, of the great 'gnoccolada' in Piazza Bra, which officially kicks off the Carnival celebrations.
The protagonists of the Vho Carnival, in the province of Alessandria, are the historic puppets who, in collaboration with the Sarina atelier of Tortona, enliven a historic festival, among the oldest in the Tortona area, with roots dating back to the early eighteenth century.
The silhouettes of the atelier's most iconic puppets are reproduced along the streets of Vho, in a journey in which the characters accompany families and visitors on a journey into fantasy.
Everyone can interact with the historic puppets and share their history and colors;
for the occasion there are workshops open to the little ones who can discover and learn the secrets of the animation theatre, protagonist of the street shows.
The Carnival which takes place in Tufara, in the province of Campobasso, is similar to a theatrical performance: the protagonist of the archaic and mysterious party is the devil, an ancient carnival mask which is revealed on the last day of the celebrations with races and acrobatics.
Passed down over the centuries, the Tufara Carnival has strong pagan and rural connotations: the devil is actually a goat figure with 7 skins and a trident in his hands and a diabolical black mask on his face.
He is a mysterious character who arouses fear and superstition as he runs through the streets of the village, screaming and wriggling.
He is accompanied by a procession of figures representing the unknown and winter who dance to shake off the cold.
The devil is preceded by another symbolic figure: death, personified by a group of masks dressed in white with their faces covered in flour.
With a scythe in their hand they recall the repetitive gestures of the farmers at harvest time: their singing is interrupted by the screams and jumps of the other masks.
The elves also participate in the carnival procession, chaining the devil and dragging him through the streets of the town while he jumps, falls to the ground and tries to seduce those he meets on the street in procession.
The Carnival of Bosa, in the province of Oristano, is one of the most original events in Sardinia for its traditions, masks and music.
The Bosan Carnival is called 'Karrasegare', a term which in Sardinian means 'chatty'.
The ingredients that have given life to Carnival for centuries are disguises, sounds and colours, life and death, the cycle of the seasons, satire and propitiatory songs.
The most important day is Shrove Tuesday, with the collection carried out house by house starting at dawn and ending at sunset.
The beggars wear a jacket inside out, paint their faces black and mark their foreheads with a red cross.
Everyone brings with them a skewer and a bag and at each visit they perform improvised satirical songs, linked to the Sardinian tradition.
As compensation they receive meat, cheese, fruit and sweets.
There are two protagonist masks: a woman who sings the funeral dirge for the death of 'Giolzi'.
And Giolzi, in fact, the Carnival that is about to end, a mask made with a sheet for a cloak and a pillowcase for a hood.
In the morning, groups of masks depicting women in mourning sing funeral laments and in the evening the party is interrupted to make room for Giolzi who is hunted down and burned in the large bonfire that closes the Carnival with a propitiatory rite.
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