Hiding in the shadows of Venice

Venice is like eating an entire box of chocolate liqueurs in one go. 

~ Truman Capote
 

I think the quote above is a good description of Venetian decadence. I'm trying to imagine Truman Capote vacationing in Venice, and my mind is conjuring up all kinds of entertaining things!

The above photo was taken through a shop window at night. I think a mask can look scary with even a mannequin's eyes peering through it! In case you don't know, Venice holds a yearly celebration called Carnival (Carnevale). Basically, during Carnival, people dress up in elaborate costumes and masks. Mostly people are so covered, that you couldn't guess who is inside the costume! 

Part of assembling my last blog post involved paging through trip photos. I was searching for photos of plague doctor masks. I ended up finding more mask photos than I remembered taking! I wanted to share these photos with you guys. Actually, I wanted to share more trip photos than this, but I'm staying true to the Halloween theme and sticking with just costumes and spooky shop displays. All the photos in this post are from my trip to Venice.

The video below features an interview with a German woman who travels to Venice each year for Carnival. She has designed some beautiful, prize winning costumes. Get this: she doesn't sew, but rather hot glues her dresses together!



I felt really inspired after watching this. With Halloween fast approaching, I might have to get going with my glue gun!

This is probably the scariest photo I took in Venice:

You might need to click this picture to see the details. This was taken through a very dark shop window. Don't enlarge this if you're scared of clowns!

If you've been to Venice, you know about the narrow alleyways between buildings. I can't imagine walking past someone wearing this clown mask in a dark alley.

Here's another mannequin at night. I'm not sure why this one freaks me out, but it does.

There are many videos on youtube that show people dressed up for Carnival. Here's a favorite:

You'll notice that most of the people in this video are entirely covered. There's no way you could recognize a person wearing one of these costumes. As you can guess, anonymity didn't always bring out the best in people. We've all seen what sometimes happens when people hide behind their avatars and user names online. Imagine that kind of anonymity in real life. To make matters more dangerous, everyone was anonymous.

Hundreds of years ago, all Venetians were wearing masks year round. There were many reasons for this. Wealthy Venetians didn't need to fear being robbed if no one knew who they were. Masks were handy for spies who wanted their identities hidden. Criminals found masks as useful as bank robbers find ski masks today. If a person didn't want others to know they gambled, they wore a mask to gamble. It goes without saying that there were all kinds of sexual acts that wouldn't have happened without the anonymity of the masks. People wearing masks could do all the things they were ashamed of or wanted to keep secret.

This lifestyle was fun for a while, but after a point the masks were having a negative impact on Venice's society. Things got so out of control, that masks were banned! During the 1100's the Catholic Church got involved and it limited mask wearing to only several months out of the year. This eventually led to the Carnival celebration we know of today. Outlawed off and on, Venetian Carnival was officially reinstated in 1979. More Venetian Carnival information can be found on this informative web site: http://www.magicofvenezia.com/servlet/the-template/maskstory/Page

Aren't these animal masks cool? It would be fun to go to Carnival as the whole zoo with a group of friends.

Oh, and last but not least... I was pretty happy to find this lurking in my photo collection!

Of course I had no idea what I was looking at when I took this picture. A neat feature of this mask is the full plague doctor figure painted between the eyes. If anyone can read Italian, please let me know what is written on the beak.

Well, I hope you all enjoyed my trip photos! I know that if I ever visit Venice again, I'll have a better understanding of the history behind the masks I see.

A doctor who could scare you to death

In my last blog post, there was a picture of a person wearing a homemade plague doctor mask. It was a long, beaked mask that looked like it was made from paper mache. I recognized this shape of mask from my trip to Venice a few years ago. There are many beautiful carnival masks for sale in Venice, and a lot of them have this beaked design:

I had no idea what I was looking at during my trip, but I did notice that this mask design was everywhere. Below is a photo I took through a shop window in Venice. I was actually trying to get a picture of the masks on the back wall, but ended up with the silhouette of plague doctor masks as a frame. If you click on this picture, you will see more of the details. The two masks at the top are a common design. Often you see either glasses painted around the eyes, or writing on the beak.

Once I returned from Venice, I looked up the symbolism of the beaked masks. I found that they were called "plague doctor" masks, but that made me more puzzled. Further web searches turned up the reason for the beak design. Doctors working during a plague would have been smelling some unpleasant odors. The beak left room for the doctor to stuff flowers and potpourri in front of his nose.

So the mask that I thought was goofy looking, turned out to be quite serious and practical!

The picture below shows the various parts of a plague doctor's outfit. Wearing a wide brimmed hat would have identified a man as a doctor. There's also a theory that a wide hat and long beak would keep the sickly from getting too close to a doctor's face, and therefore infecting him. The doctor would carry a stick to direct people and also inspect a patient without touching them. His long coat would be tucked into his mask and covered with suet and wax. The suet was supposed to draw the plague out of the victim and trap it. The wax was there to prevent body fluids from sticking to the doctor.

After posting the plague doctor picture from Ren Faire, I exchanged some interesting tweets with an artist who goes by the name King Unicorn. He created the plague doctor art doll that is pictured below:

Isn't this character cool? He's a non-traditional take on the doctor, but he's eerie in his own faceless way! Click the image to see more of this character and read the inspiration for the design. You'll freak out when you see his back! King Unicorn is a great illustrator as well as a sculptor, and I think you will all enjoy his work. Here's his web site: http://www.kingunicorn.com/

Along with showing me a different kind of plague doctor, King Unicorn suggested an amazing movie to me: Restoration. The fact that this movie stars Robert Downey Jr. was reason enough for me to see it.

Besides getting to look at beautiful sets, costumes, and Robert Downey Jr., I learned a lot about 17th century England, and I liked the message of the film. It was shocking to go from viewing the excesses of the court, to seeing the plague-ridden villages that everyday people were living in. Throughout the movie, Robert Downey Jr.'s character (also named Robert) learns about his true talent to heal and also about what really matters in life.

I was thrilled to find an eight minute clip of Restoration that fits this post perfectly. I recommend watching the whole thing, but if you're pressed for time, you can skip to two parts of this. If you stop the video at 2:48, you will see the beak of the mask being stuffed with flowers and potpourri. If you skip to 3:42, you will see Robert wearing the entire plague doctor outfit.



Isn't the image of the plague doctor in this movie striking? Can you imagine seeing someone in this leather mask and hat? I think the plague doctor's outfit probably added more terror to the plague. By the way, the fire that is mentioned at the end of this clip wiped out a lot of the plague sufferers, and The Great Plague in general.

Since Robert looks almost Steampunk in his mask, I decided to do a web search for Steampunk plague doctor masks. I started by doing an Etsy search, and found all these goodies: Steampunk plague doctor masks

I think "Plague Doctor" would be a scary Halloween costume! "Plague Victim" might be an even scarier one...

Here's a trivia question for you: Who was the most famous plague doctor?

Answer: Nostradamus!

I was surprised to learn that Nostradamus was a plague doctor. The not so surprising part is that he was really ahead of his time. Nostradamus did not believe in using leeches on the sick, like a lot of doctors during his time did. When you consider that Nostradamus was practicing during the 16th century, and doctors were still blood-letting late into 19th century, he was way ahead of his time! Nostradamus' remedies of choice were: fresh air, clean water, and a juice preparation of rose hips that contained high amounts of Vitamin C.

On a side note, I was reminded of the old Spy vs. Spy cartoon while writing this post. I bet we can all guess what inspired these drawings...

I'm going to leave you with this beautiful tribute video to plague doctors. I think they deserve some kind of tribute, because these men were putting their lives into their hands while trying to help. Actually, most of the trained doctors had already fled the plague, so "plague doctors" were often regular citizens who stepped up to the task. This video is made from a slideshow of art and photos set to some great eerie music! I suggest watching this full screen if you can.