James H. Johnson (1) (1960–)

Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) may be one of several cultural icons who gave Venetian carnival and masking a bad name. He claimed to hate deceit, but everyone knows that his life consisted of little else. Thanks to him and other chroniclers of the 18th and 19th centuries, wearing masks has been associated exclusively with secrecy, disguise, deception and an excuse for petty criminality. But in Venice Incognito, James H. Johnson attempts to set the record straight, and in the process presents a much broader understanding of how and why masking came to be much more than a device donned during the two months of carnival, and surprisingly became part of everyday attire for members of all levels of society, from doge to drifter. This is not to say there was no hanky-panky at all underneath the guise of the mask, but there was much else besides.

Generally speaking, masks have a long history. The first masks were associated with Dionysus. And Greek and Roman performers used masks in the belief that they amplified the voice. Early on, masks were linked with the devil and, by extension, with commonplace dishonesty, which in turn linked masking to disguise and deception.

Carnival — and with it the wearing of masks — traditionally began in Venice on December 26 and concluded at the beginning of Lent. During this two-month period, Piazza San Marco became a cross between a country fair, an elegant masked ball and, during the day, a bull hunt. "For visitors especially, carnival was a season outside of time when roles were suspended, taboos relaxed and life's practical concerns set aside."

The clamor of dozens of side shows dominated — acrobats, dancers, exotic animals, human deformities, impromptu performers, con men with petty scams, professional card sharks, prostitutes, pickpockets, beggars and fortunetellers were everywhere; vendors sold sweets and charlatans and mountebanks hawked elixirs and ointments. "In 1750 a lady led a lioness through the piazza, caressing it and periodically putting her hand into its mouth."

Maskers traveled in packs, sometimes with a common theme such as the seven deadly sins, or characters from commedia dell'arte. Women dressed as nymphs and shepherdesses, men as Scaramouches and Punchinellos, and both male and female cross-dressers were to be seen.

Venetians eventually began wearing masks six months out of the year, corresponding with the theater season, which began in October and ended with Lent. Venetian masking consisted of an entire covering, not merely a facial disguise. The tabàro and baùta eventually became the city's uniform. The baùta was a full-length cloak, often gray, and the tabàro was an elbow-length hooded cape that was worn on top, usually black. The hood was close fitting, and the three-quarter length mask allowed the wearer to eat or drink.

Such general masking was at first rejected by the aristocracy but was eventually embraced wholeheartedly to the extent that at state occasions masks were de rigueur. Nobles wore masks at receptions for foreign heads of state and ambassadors. The reasons for this were complex and evolved out of the rigidities of Venetian society.

However, in Venice at the peak of the Inquisition, masks were actually a defensive tool intended less for deception than for survival. In the 1600s when Venice adopted the mask as common attire, it did so under an accepted premise: "that masks were not always sinful or demonic, that their use extended beyond commedia and carnival and that they served purposes other than disguise." The notion of the mask as a defender of rank was and still is foreign to anyone outside Venice. But the principal purpose of masks for most Venetians was not disguise. They represented "ritualized reserve rather than concealment." And, as a character in a play by Carlo Goldoni remarked, "masks permit women to go everywhere honestly."

It was in fact during the theatrical boom in the mid 1600s that spectators took to wearing masks in public. Again, disguise was not the main purpose. It was to preserve "a measure of liberty by dispensing with ceremony." Masks also maintained the illusion of equality.

In a city as small as Venice (150,000 pop. in 1750) everyone knew everyone else, and recognition was based on more than facial features — i.e., stature, build, gait, voice, mannerisms and even clothes underneath the tabàro and baùta.

What was the point of wearing masks if others could figure out who you were? It allowed nobles to go to a casino or the theater or a café "anonymously" and off the record. Café society was developing at the time, and cafes permitted exchanges of opinion and conversation among people who would not otherwise have spoken to each other. Masks allowed for the preservation of distance and reserve.

Before everyday masking became widespread among the nobility, dress codes in Venice were as rigid as the social and political stratification they reflected. Gentlemen wore togas, and women were always veiled and wore black in public. Sumptuary laws prohibiting public flaunting of furs, jewelry and imported brocades played a small but contributing role in the prevalence of masks in an otherwise rigidly stratified society. The tabàro functioned as a cover-up allowing people to dress as they pleased. The Venetian mask became more of a convention than an embellishment.

Finally, Johnson tells us that after the fall of Venice under Napoleon in 1797, masking disappeared as completely as did the Republic. Napoleon's interpretation of masking in Venice was almost completely wrong and contributed much to the narrow impression that has come down to us in the present day — that roles were suspended, taboos relaxed, that masks engendered deceit and criminality or that they were symbols of almost anything dangerous, from tyranny to decadence or to licentiousness. Thus, the 17th and 18th century practices around masking were contradictory and meant different things to different levels of Venetian society, and particularly to tourists who had little understanding of anything beyond appearances and the lurid tales they had read or heard before arriving — some of which were true in their way, but by no means told the whole story.

Venice Incognito is a work of scholarship with over 500 endnotes and a huge bibliography of works written mostly in Italian. It presents perhaps more than the average person wants to know about masks, carnival and Venetian social, political and religious history, but it gives us a deeper understanding of Venice before Napoleon, and is a very interesting read.… (meer)