The Medici's Carnival

The history of the festivities commenced by Lorenzo De' Medici

"Quant’è bella giovinezza, / che si fugge tuttavia! / chi vuol esser lieto, sia: /di doman non c’è certezza". So begins The Triumph of Bacchus and Arianna, the most famous of songs Carnascialeschi (song of Carnival) consists of the ruler of Florence Lorenzo de ' Medici during Carnival 1490 . accompanied this song , sung and set to music , one of the triumphs ( floats, masked ) - in this case that of Bacchus , accompanied by his retinue : Arianna , nymphs and satyrs - which, probably invented by Lorenzo himself , used to parade through the streets of Florence during the carnival. tradition of these parades of floats during Carnival also had great success in the sixteenth century.

If you remember in particular one , amazing inventions and scenic grandeur of equipment , Carnival 1513 , when two companies of actors they set up as many as 10 floats paraded through the streets of Florence between 6 and 8 February dedicated to the theme of the return of ' golden age. The imaginative urban setting , regularly described by Giorgio Vasari in his Life of Pontormo (1568) , concurred important artists such as Piero di Cosimo, Andrea del Sarto, il giovane Jacopo Pontormo, Andrea di Cosimo Feltrini, Baccio Bandinelli. Paintings and equipment for these installations were destroyed , but there are still some paintings by Andrea del Sarto and Pontormo painted in chiaroscuro with figures and nudes dressed in old-fashioned that they were probably destined to adorn the triumphal arches of the apparatus road .