THE VENICE CARNIVAL

Name: The Venice Carnival
Start: 2027-01-23
End: 2027-02-09
Location: Venice

Late January into February · Venice · A Fortnight · Since 1162 · Festival

Arranged by the Court

A masked pair in tricorne and plumed headdress on the Riva above the moored gondolas with San Giorgio Maggiore beyond at The Venice Carnival — I · The Riva

Dates: 23 January to 9 February 2027
WhereVenice
DressBlack tie; period costume where the code requires it
AdmissionOpen to the public
The weatherIn January the mainland at Treviso, near Venice, reaches about 8°C by day and 0°C at night, and rain falls on about one day in six.
The tableThe Court dines afterwards at Gran Caffè Quadri, Piazza San Marco 121, Venice (alajmo.it).
In companyA member who means to go says so to the Secretary, and the Court seats its members together where the engagement allows.RSVP tells the Secretary that a member means to attend. Send passes the engagement’s name, its date and the address of its page to whomever the reader chooses, or, on a computer, copies the address; the Court itself sends and keeps nothing.RSVP

The Venice Carnival runs for about a fortnight and ends on Shrove Tuesday. The city fills, the masks come out, and for those two weeks Venice is something close to what it was.

The word carnevale comes from the Latin for the removing of meat. The whole season is the last indulgence before forty days without one.

A lady in a powdered wig with red plumes and a gentleman in a fur-trimmed tricorne, both in red and gold brocade, on the carnival stage in St Mark’s Square at The Venice Carnival — II · Red and Gold

The Mask

The masks were not decoration. They were an instrument.

The bauta is the one everyone knows: a stark white face with a jutting chin that lets the wearer eat and speak without taking it off, worn with a black tricorn and a cloak. It concealed sex as well as identity, and it was worn by patrician and porter alike.

Which is the part that gets lost. A Venetian in a bauta could not be placed. He could enter a gaming house, argue in the street, or address a man far above him, and that man could not tell whether he was being spoken to by an equal. The bauta was worn at official business, including voting and political meetings, precisely because it took rank out of the room.

The moretta went further and is stranger. A small oval of black velvet, held in place by a button gripped between the teeth. A woman wearing one could not speak at all. She was anonymous and silent, and removing the mask ended both conditions at once.

Two carnival masks in gilt and orange plumes turned face to face above a canal at The Venice Carnival — III · Face to Face

The Two Centuries

The carnival is first mentioned in a document of 1094 and is usually dated to a victory celebration in 1162. It ran for six hundred years, and at its height it went on for months at a time.

Napoleon ended it. He took Venice in 1797 and masks and public festivity were banned. What survived was the private party in the palace and a single ball at La Fenice. The city passed to Austria and the carnival did not return. The fascist government banned it again in the 1930s, in case anyone had ideas.

In 1967 some Venetians began holding costumed parties privately. In 1979 it was formally revived, partly as culture and partly as economics, and the mask-makers went back to work.

So the carnival kept today is a hundred and eighty years younger than it looks, and everyone in Venice knows it.

A flotilla of costumed rowers and decorated boats filling the canal between crowded banks at the water parade of The Venice Carnival — IV · The Water Parade

What to Know

Most of what happens is free and outdoors. The parades, the water processions, the Flight of the Angel down a rope into St Mark’s Square. None of it costs anything.

The balls are the opposite. Il Ballo del Doge, invented in 1994 by a Venetian designer, is the one people mean when they speak of the private carnival, and it is priced accordingly. Others are given at the Ca’ Vendramin Calergi and in palaces along the Grand Canal.

Costume is not optional at a ball, and it is not a rented cape. The good houses hire from the workshops that make them, and a fitting takes time and should be arranged months out. Where an evening publishes its own code, the Court follows it. The Official Dinner Show at the Ca’ Vendramin Calergi publishes one: “A period costume is mandatory, evening gowns or tuxedos are not permitted.” For the other evenings, where nothing is published, the Court’s choice is black tie.

St Mark’s Square on the final weekend is unbearable. The islands are not. Burano holds its own carnival and it is better.

The mistake is going for the last weekend. Go mid-week, when the city still belongs to the people who live in it.

Questions

When is the Venice Carnival in 2027?

The official site gives the Venice Carnival 2027 as Saturday 23 January to Tuesday 9 February 2027, ending as always on Shrove Tuesday. The 2027 programme of events is to follow.

What are the traditional Venice Carnival masks?

The official site names three masks and costumes: the bauta, a plain mask usually worn with the tabarro, a large black cloak, to hide face and body alike; the moretta, a black velvet oval held by a button between the teeth; and the gnaga, in which men dressed as women behind a cat’s mask, in satire.

Is there an official Venice Carnival ball?

The Carnival’s own evening is the Official Dinner Show at Ca’ Vendramin Calergi on the Grand Canal, with dinner, music and performers, from 9pm. In 2027 it is given on 30 and 31 January and from 4 to 9 February. As of October 2026, premium tables start at 650 euros.

What should you wear to the Venice Carnival?

The Carnival publishes no dress code for the streets, where mask and costume are a matter of choice. At the Official Dinner Show the dress code is masked: a period costume is mandatory, and evening gowns or tuxedos are not permitted. The Court wears black tie in the evenings, and period costume wherever a ball requires it.

A giant grey rat rides a red boat on the Grand Canal beneath the Rialto Bridge as streamers burst overhead, at the water parade of The Venice Carnival — V · The Rialto

The Court

The Venice Carnival is not the Court’s own. Places at the private balls, costume from the workshops that make it, and rooms in the city are sought on a member’s behalf, and the Court arranges the whole of it: getting there, where to stay, and the table afterwards. Both the balls and the costumiers are taken months ahead.

How one becomes a member is set out under Admission.