55-59, Ch. 5: The Death of Carnival (Moakley)

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5
THE DEATH OF CARNIVAL

THERE ARE two characters in the triumphal procession who are rather hard to account for. They are the lowest of the trumps and the wild card known as the Fool. The Fool has no place in the procession, either with the four ordinary suits or among the trumps.

We find that the lowest trump is named Bagatino. This Bagatino was one of the Carnival clowns, and later became the "Little Juggler" of the commedia dell'arte. In our procession he is the Carnival King, and the real object of the whole procession is to lead him to his execution. He is one of Cupid's captives because Carnival is a great time for love as well as farce. He is also the principal victim of the triumph of Death, and he rises hopefully from the grave in the triumph of Eternity. (1)

The Fool has no place among the seventy-seven regular cards because they are not his world at all. Like the six unnumbered cards of the minchiate pack, he is "out of this world." He has his own world, the approaching season of Lent, from which he comes in advance to warn all the gay figures of Carnival that they have but a short time to enjoy themselves. (2)

Carnival, like a noble wedding or a solemn entry, was one of the favorite occasions for triumphal processions. In particular, there would be a procession to greet King Carnival before the beginning of Lent. This took place just after Christmas, when he would be the highest and most victorious of the triumphs. At the close of the pre-Lenten season his position would be reversed, for he then had only one day to live.

The mock execution of King Carnival is a vestige of the ancient Saturnalia, when the man who had acted as king of the revels was actually put to death at the end of his reign. This practice continued in parts of the Roman army well into Christian times. We read of a soldier who refused to act as king of the Saturnalia because he was a Christian, and was martyred (anyway) in consequence. The stubborn persistence
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[note 1 originally on p. 58; note 2 originally on p. 59]
1. For the identification of Il Bagatino and Il Matto as Carnival King and Lent see the notes for those two cards.
2. For the Carnival triumphs see Burckhardt (Civilization) Pt V ch 8: "The Festivals."

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of this grisly human sacrifice is all the more remarkable when we remember that it had been forbidden by the Roman Emperor Tiberius centuries before. (3)

The Saturnalia was a winter festival commemorating the golden age of Saturn, the age when the fruits of the earth were bountiful and men were at peace. There was no money in that time, and therefore no greed for gold. No man was a slave, and all property was held in common. Good King Saturn died, and the golden age was dead except when brought to life again for a few days each year during the festival. For that short time slaves and masters were equal. Slaves were permitted to speak as boldly as they wished, to get drunk, issue orders to their masters, and in general be excused for behavior which would have been fatal at any other time. Psychologically speaking, it was an excellent safety valve. But it had its dark side. In the earliest times the man elected to play the part of King Saturn during the festival had to die at its close. When the actual death was prohibited in later days, no doubt there was an execution in effigy, as in the medieval Carnival.

The early Christians would have nothing to do with the winter revels of Saturnalia. But to Christians of a later age, compelled by civil law to observe numerous ecclesiastical precepts, something was again needed as a safety valve. This must have been especially true during the late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, when many of the clergy, the very class which insisted on Christian behavior, were openly seen to be acting in direct opposition to the principles they preached. Then, as the temporal power of the Church declined, so did the necessity for the Carnival, and today it is given, at best, only token observance in a few sections of the Christian world. (4)

We have a glimpse of the Carnival in its heyday from the program of a Carnival at Rome in 1891, which was celebrated in the medieval manner. (5) The Carnival season began on January seventeenth, and from that date it was lawful to wear any costume and to cover the face with a mask. The formal celebrations began two weeks later, and lasted for ten days, from February first to the tenth. The official Carnival was inaugurated by the grand Senatorial Procession, with participants wearing costumes of the fourteenth century. This procession started at two o'clock in the, afternoon at the Piazza del Popolo and moved by way, of the Corso and the Via Nazionale to the Costanzi Theater. It was a procession of men-at-arms, cavalcades, heralds, and trumpeters, preceding the Senator of Rome and his suite.
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[originally on p. 59]
3. For Saturnalia and Carnival see the abridged edition of The Golden Bough, by Sir James George Frazer (New York, Macmillan 3.440) 383-587 and 301-307. Our bibliography lists T. H. Caster's revised abridgment, The New Golden Bough, which seems not to object to these passages, and Professor Homer W. Smith, in his Man and his Gods (New York, Grosset 1952) 138-139, says practically the same thing as Frazer about the Saturnalia. See also Bernheimer (Wild) p 53ff — who is, however, to inclined toward the idea of a secret society being involved, I think.
4. The resentment of the laity against the clergy during our period appears in the tarocchi themselves, which make the Pope and Popess captives of Cupid, and again and again in the secular literature of the time. See Huizinga (Waning) p 178f and Burckhardt (Civilization) pt VI eh 2: "Religion in Daily Life."
5. The description of the Carnival of 1891 is from Carnival at Rome.

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When it arrived at the theater, the first grand veglione (masked ball) of the Carnival began. This was a children's party, with prizes for the best costumes. In the evening there were two more veglioni in other theaters.

The next day, Monday, featured a band contest and a fete at the Wine Show. Here too, prizes were awarded for the best costumes. On Tuesday there was a parade of the Senatorial Cortege, the race in which the rioni (the various quarters of the city) competed, and a horse race. There was throwing of red chalk in the Corso, and in the evening a veglione with prizes. On Wednesday the horse races continued, and there was a grand artistic fancy dress ball in the evening, with prizes again for the best costumes. An added attraction was a great chess board in one of the theaters, on which the pieces were living people. This chess game was played by two members chosen from the Roman chess society.

On Thursday, February fifth, a traditional triumphal procession was held, with decorated vans, masqueraders on horseback and on foot, all competing for prizes. A battle of flowers took place from two o'clock until dusk. In the evening there was a grand illumination of the Piazza del Popolo by Messrs Fantappié and Sons from Florence. In it were twenty colossal transparent Chinese fans lighted with various colors: and twenty streams of light from the top of the obelisk. Two separate veglioni were held, each with prizes. The next evening there was a "white" veglione at the Costanzi Theater, to which only masqueraders in white were admitted.

The program for Saturday the seventh included another battle of flowers, more racing, and the usual veglione. On Sunday there was a parade of two-horse carriages and a veglione. Monday, the last day but one of the Carnival, was marked by the award of prizes for the most elegantly decorated balconies along the Corso, the route by which the Senatorial Cortege proceeded to the racing in the Piazzo del Popolo. In addition, there was a wine fair, and of course, a veglione in the evening. People were advised that the best time to see this veglione was from midnight until two.

The Carnival ended on Tuesday with a battle of flowers and a repetition of all the previous parades. In the final triumphal procession was a colossal statue of Justice on a float eight yards long, another huge float with a statue of Rome, and the Wedding of Romulus and Tazia on a third. In the evening there was the special candlelight display called

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the moccoletti, with a procession of bengal lights and illuminated vehicles. The evening concluded with the cremation of King Carnival, fireworks, and a balloon ascent.

From the historical evidence we have gathered, we may quite logically deduce that the commedia dell'arte was an outgrowth of the fifteenth-century Carnival. This type of farcical comedy improvised by skilled actors on the basis of a written plot could easily have developed from the sort of procession which appears in the Visconti-Sforza tarocchi. (6) If we imagine the Fool, the representative of Lent, running alongside the procession and calling his warnings to the riders in the cars, we can assume that they talked back to him. Happy bits of repartee would please the crowds and encourage the actors to do even better. Finally the representative of Lent might invite King Carnival to leave the safety of his car and fight like a man. (7) Then we would have a scene such as Breughel shows us in his painting "The Battle between Carnival and Lent," where jolly fat Carnival sits on a wine barrel. With a spitted goose for his weapon, he fights the representative of Lent, in this case an old woman like the Popess of the tarocchi, who had to take the place of the Fool when the latter eventually assumed the guise of Carnival King. In Breughel's painting we see in one corner a comedy troupe engaged in playing "The Dirty Bride", and observe that they look very much like characters who were originally part of our triumphal procession.

The metamorphosis of the Fool into the Carnival King can be seen quite plainly in later tarocchi packs and in other paintings. His rags and patches became gayer and gayer, as did the feathers in his hair. At some time or other he may have won his battle with the Carnival King, or more likely, he was such a dominant figure in the gaiety that people forgot he had not always been the Carnival King. (8)

So even in the tarocchi we have the old story of the sacred king, who has a merry reign for a short time and then is put to death by his successor, The Carnival King is the first of the trumps, and his successor, King Lent, is just outside the door, waiting to dethrone him and take over his staff of office. The King is dead! Long live the King!
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[originally on p. 59]
6. The best books I have found on the commedia dell'arte are Smith (Commedia) and Lea (Italian), which is much more detailed than Smith. Enci spett has good articles on "Carnevale" and "Commedia dell'arte." I suspect a connection between the tarocchi characters and those of the commedia because they are so similar; Smith (p 59, note) gives as the list of essential characters in the commedia two lovers, three women, one Scaramouche who plays the part of the braggart Captain, Pantalone, the Doctor of Law, Mezzetin, and Harlequin. The boastful Captain says that he once took prisoner Love, Death, and the Devil, and went to Hell to steal Proserpina. The Moon forgot Endymion for him, and he conquered Cupid in battle. (Smith 93-95). See also the first paragraph of the Notes for Il Bagatino, the first of the trumps, who was a character of the commedia. Pictures of the Carnival characters and the commedia characters can hardly be distinguished, and there is the same slapstick in both.
7. See the reconstruction in my "Undocumented Prologue," above.
8. For the metamorphosis of the Fool see the notes for that card.

Scan of pp. 58-59 (Notes): viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1168&start=30#p19080