The origins of the Carnival of Viareggio date back to 1873. In those years it was a glitzy party elite, celebrated in the premises of the Theatre and the Royal Casino. Just by a group of young patrons of these festivals, was born the idea of holding a parade.
Forerunners of the famous floats of today, were of the carriages filled with flowers that travelled the via Regia of the city for the first time on 24 December 1873, on the occasion of Mardi Gras.
In 1883 the floats, replaced the carriages. Monumental wagons were wooden structures and jute, shaped and prepared by artisans and local workers. At the beginning of the 20th century the bacchanal moved on the sea promenade, a splendid natural stage that brought even more incentives and prestige at the Carnival.
The 1921 was a very important date, because the event began a campaign of self-promotion, creating its own official anthem "glass of Champagne" and creating an official journal "Viareggio".
The real breakthrough, which transformed the Carnival of Viareggio, in the Carnival we know today was in 1925. In that year it was in fact invented the technique of paper to blakeview to build wagons, technique known as paper mache. This material, extremely malleable, allowed the builders to make increasingly large and complicated wagons, but incredibly light.
In 1930 was designed by Uberto Bonetti, the mask symbol of Carnival: il Burlamacco. The painter wanted to summarize in the picture symbol, the two highlights of life viareggina — summer Carnival.
The bacchanal has stopped only evil events like wars.
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