Venice Carnival 2012 - Life is a Theater. It's time to get Masked

4 - 21 February

The Venice Carnival is the largest and most important Venetian festival, an appreciated cocktail of tradition, entertainment, history and transgression in a unique city, a festival that attracts thousands of people from around the world each year. The Carnival has very old origins. It is a festival that celebrates the passage from winter into spring, a time when seemingly anything is possible, including the illusion where the most humble of classes become the most powerful by wearing masks on their faces.

The official start of the Venice Carnival dates back to 1296, when the Senate of the Republic made the Carnival official with an edict declaring the day before Lent a public holiday. After an interruption lasting almost two centuries, the tradition of Carnival was rediscovered by the Municipality in 1980 and since then it has taken place every year with success.

The main theme of the Venice Carnival 2012 will be "Life is a Theater! It's time to get Masked". Many theatrical events held in Venice for the Carnival rococo waited for years is the most famous of the world.

Besides the theater, the Carnival of Venice 2012 will focus on the Angel Flight, unique event and certainly since as always will take place in Piazza San Marco in the day of 12 February.