Bauta - Bautta

This mask and disguise is a standard one used to hide sex and identity.  The big chinned mask hides the whole face but allows for conversation but with the voice masked too.  The cape covers the whole body, and the hat covers the head and hairstyle. 

Plague Doctor - Medico

Taken from Venice's plague afflicted past, this costume mimics the doctors who roamed Venice determining which patients were doomed and destined for the plagued body dumping ground on a nearby island. 

The big nose was filled with herbs thought to protect the doctor from contracting the disease.  As the disease was passed by the bite of fleas, the mask in reality served only to protect the doctor from the unpleasant odors of the city and the dead and dying. 

At the peak of the plague, which hit Venice, a sea-faring nation, first in Europe, 2/3 of the inhabitants of Venice died, decimating the city-state and dooming it to lose it's prominent place in the world of trade and finance.

The Doctor, or Dottore, is also a Commedia dell'Arte character.  He is a Bolognese University trained doctor who is learned and respected by others, but who in reality is foolish, ill-educated as seen by his mangling of the language, and prone to pointless, learned debates while his patients die.  He is known by many names, including Graziano and Balanzone, but the character is always the same.

Commedia dell'Arte Inspired Characters

This uniquely Italian theatre was known throughout Europe for hundreds of years as Commedia Italiana.  Stock characters peopled traveling theatrical troupes, which performed a repertoire  of comic and melodramatic plays for courts, private merchant families and for the public.  Sometimes the characters took on different names but the characteristics and costumes remained the same so they were easily recognizable to the audiences.

For more Commedia dell'arte characters, visit either my Carnival page or my Commedia dell'arte page.