Image via WikipediaThe city of Sant'Eraclio, Umbria is situated approximately some 25 miles (40 kilometers) southeast of the regional capital, Perugia. Its Carnevale was originated back in 1542 by the Olivetani friars of Mormonzone, who lived in a nearby convent that has long been abandoned. These forward-looking friars felt that the local populace deserved their own merry-making on the streets to balance the local gentry's exclusive palace parties. Good for them! Originally Sant'Eraclio Carnevale meant parades of oxen-drawn carts festooned with branches and flowers, and the people dancing and singing to the music of flutes and trumpets played by men and women in the traveling carts. But during the Seventeenth Century the Church decried this Carnevale as sinful and banned it. I have the impression that the local gentry's exclusive palace parties were not banned. Approximately a century later Carnevale was allowed to resume, but in this region only in Sant'Eraclio. Carnivale continued here without interruption until the Second World War.
