North Italian Folk: Sketches of Town and Country Life

								

gaudier hue, orange and crimson, for massive and curiously wrought gold
ornaments—they are the contadine, and as yet the tradesmen’s wives
are but a handful. You will know these, as they push their way into the
medley, by their cunningly built hair that is smoothed into a perfect
mirror of glossiness, and coiled and twisted and piled into a marvel
of structure; mark them by their worsted dress also, and by the silken
jacket after a Paris mode of some years back, or the cashmere shawl
in place of the gaudy kerchief about their shoulders.
The Piazza San Lorenzo or of the Cathedral, the Piazza before the Ducal
Palace and Sant’Ambrogio, have both seen something of the crowd as the
people pressed up from the heart of the city to reach the more open
thoroughfares; the Piazza San Domenico where the Opera House stands,
and where of early mornings these same men and women are wont to come
buying and selling at market, has also been a gangway for the mob, but
none of these places see the best of the Carnival, for the cream of
the Corso is down the Vie Nuove and Nuovissime. So the people fight
their way from Piazza S. Domenico, down the Via Carlo Felice, to the
Piazza delle Fontane Amorose, for here the Carnival will soon begin in
good earnest. The balconies of the Spinola Palace, of the Pallavicini,
Brignole, Serra, Durazzo, and of all the palaces down these chiefest,
beautiful streets, have been decked with crimson hangings and cushions,
with gold and green and amber trappings, curious heir-looms that
for centuries perhaps have been kept for such occasions. Baskets of
flowers, stocks, violets, heartsease, camellias red and white, and
everything that commonly blooms here in the winter time, are placed
ready for gallants and ladies soon to shower on the masqueraders
beneath. The air is a little cold, but the sun shines, the sky is blue,
faces and colours wake to merriest life.
The first of the merry-makers has appeared. He is a buffoon, with
tawdry costume and hideous mask, he is of the people and comes along
on foot, hurling jests and poisonous comfits around him, but all the
more the people are amused; they hoot and cheer, and so he passes down
the ranks. He is quickly followed by another mask, also of the people,
but this one drives a donkey in a small cart; he is ill-dressed with
a purpose, he screams, he gesticulates, he is evidently the caricature
of some pet grievance, for the mob cry aloud for joy. But this is not
the Corso; this would not content even the populace—great things are
coming. Ladies of the nobility—beautiful, with hair dressed after the
French fashion, and silken garments and graciously-smiling faces—begin
to fill the balconies. They nod and laugh and pose gracefully to their
attendant gallants, then they rise in their seats to pose and laugh
again for other gallants who are in the masquerading throng beneath,
and upon whom they will shower comfits and flowers and smiles alike,