How Verona celebrates Carnival

Venerdì Gnocolar (meaning Dumplings Friday) is the most awaited event of Verona’s Carnival. Have you ever participated to this great fair full of masks, Valpolicella wine and dumplings to eat? You have to. Above all if you are planning to enjoy the nearby Venice Carnival. Do you like Italian dumplings? Gnocchi are a kind of pasta made of potatoes, typical of this area. You will find them in tons during this Carnival feast… Amazing!

The event is known as “Baccanale del Gnocco” (Dumplings’ symposium), or Abundance Feast. It is a great parade of masks along the streets in the historical city center, preceded by a complex investiture ritual, that ends with the so called “Funzione dei Gnocchi” (Dumplings’ Rite). The so called “Papà del Gnoco” (Dumplings Father) officiates this rite. He is a pot-bellied person with a long white beard, all brocade dressed, with a red cloak. Some kind of Santa’s forefather. He holds on a golden fork with a big potato dumpling on top, like a sceptre. At the end of the parade, he distributes hot potato dumpling dishes to everyone, helped by his “gobeti” (other minor pot-bellied characters), characterized by a hump, probably referring to the Cathedral’s caryatids.

For once the origin of this tradition is not lost in legend, but it is supported by historical documentation. In “Istoria di Verona” (Verona’s history) written in 1594 by Mr Girolamo dalla Corte, gentleman of Verona, we can read about the famine occurred between 1520 and 1531, due to the ravages of the Lanzichenecchi and the flooding of Adige river. After these calamities the cost of bread increased too much, with the following lockout of bakeries that led to a popular uprising in San Zeno square on the 18th of June, 1531. Some richer members of the middle class paid for satisfy the basic needs of San Zeno’s population, avoiding a worst crisis. The history stops here, then tradition begins. Tradition gives to the citizen Tommaso Da Vico the inheritance of all the bread, floor, butter, cheese and wine distributed to San Zeno’s poor people in the last Friday of Carnival celebrations.

Potatoes didn’t exist in Italy yet, the donation was celebrated with a meal of flour dumplings. That would be the real Gnoco’s Father. His testament would have been identified in the old archives of Verona (document number 128, dictated on May the 13th, 1531 at the notary Bonifaccio di Sebastiano Dalla Mano). In his will we read: Doctor Tommaso Da Vico, impatient but sane, says that he wants to be buried near San Zeno Church, next to the big stone table where poor people used to celebrate “Venerdì Gnocolar”.

 

Pic courtesy of Flickr User Benito Roveran