Cirkul’R company

Street Chronicles

Viareggio Carnival: the papier-mâché giants

By the Cirkul’R company · · 15 min read

Giant float on the Viareggio seafront: a black witch holding an apple, surrounded by a green dragon and fruit, in front of a huge crowd
L'ultima Biancaneve, float by Jacopo Allegrucci, winner in 2019. Photo: Andrea Mazzi Viareggio, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Once upon a time there was a small shipbuilding town on the Tuscan coast, where people knew how to bend timber, caulk hulls and turn winches. One day, its inhabitants decided to build something other than boats: giants. Twenty-metre giants made of newspaper and flour paste, which roll their eyes, open their mouths and mock the powerful. Welcome to Viareggio, world capital of the carnival float.

1873: born on a café terrace

It all begins at a table of the Caffè del Casinò. A handful of young bourgeois from Viareggio decide to parade decorated carriages on Shrove Tuesday. According to tradition, they wanted to protest against taxes. On Shrove Tuesday 1873, the carriages roll down the via Regia: the Viareggio Carnival is born. That same year, on the other side of the border, Nice creates its Comité des fêtes. The two great float carnivals of the Mediterranean are twins.

In the early 1880s, a first decorated float wins a prize: I quattro mori, a copy of the Four Moors monument in Livorno. At that time the floats are made of wood, plaster and jute cloth, sculpted by the town's shipwrights. This detail matters: all of Viareggio's know-how comes from the port. In 1905, the parade leaves the via Regia for the seafront promenade, where it still rolls today.

1925: the paper revolution

In 1923, Umberto Giampieri's Carro di Pierrot causes a sensation: it is the first giant that turns its head and rolls its eyes, thanks to mechanisms built by the shipyard technicians. But one problem remains: wood and plaster are heavy. The bigger a float grows, the harder it becomes to move.

In 1925, the painter and sculptor Antonio D'Arliano finds the solution. He presses layers of newspaper soaked in flour paste inside plaster moulds. Once dry, the paper forms a rigid shell, strong and surprisingly light. This is carta a calco, “moulded paper”. His float, I cavalieri del Carnevale, wins first prize. Wood disappears, and the floats begin to grow towards the sky.

Let us be precise: D'Arliano did not invent papier-mâché (cartapesta), which had long been known. He invented the way of moulding it in plaster, which makes it possible to produce giant pieces, regular and light. It is this method that made Viareggio's fame.

The recipe for a paper giant

A sculpted face, half in clay, half covered by its white plaster mould
The clay model and a piece of its plaster mould, the first step of carta a calco. Photo: Simone Politi (float maker), CC BY-SA 4.0.

Even today, a first-category float is built more or less as it was in D'Arliano's time. Here are the steps:

  1. The drawing. In summer, the float maker draws his project, the bozzetto, and submits it to the competition of the Carnival Foundation.
  2. The skeleton. A structure of iron and wood is erected on the rolling chassis.
  3. The clay. Each figure, or each piece of a giant figure, is sculpted by hand in clay.
  4. The mould. The clay is covered with plaster to obtain a hollow mould, then the clay is removed.
  5. The paper. Inside the mould, layers of newspaper soaked in a paste of flour and water are pressed in. Grey and pink paper are often alternated to keep track of the layers. The float makers use about five tonnes of newspaper a year.
  6. Demoulding. The paper shell, dry and rigid, comes out of the mould.
  7. Assembly. The shells are fixed onto the iron skeleton.
  8. Painting. Sanding, priming, painting, then a varnish to protect against the February rain.
  9. The movements. Heads, eyes, arms and torsos that open are driven by mechanisms, once hand-cranked, today hydraulic and electric.
In a hangar, an enormous painted papier-mâché clown's head, crowned and sticking out its tongue, waits to be mounted on a float
A papier-mâché piece awaits assembly in a Viareggio hangar. Photo: Deborah75, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The figures are dizzying. A first-category float stands about twenty metres high, a dozen wide, and weighs 30 to 40 tonnes. It takes six to eight months of work by a team of sculptors, painters, blacksmiths, mechanics and seamstresses, and costs more than 140,000 euros. On parade day, more than two hundred people in costume dance on and around it.

Burlamacco, the mask of the beach

Statue of Burlamacco perched on a mast, arms outstretched, in a red-and-white chequered costume with a black cape
Burlamacco, the mask of Viareggio, a character created by Uberto Bonetti in 1930. Photo: Sailko, CC BY 2.5.

Every great Italian city has its mask: Harlequin in Bergamo, Pulcinella in Naples, Doctor Balanzone in Bologna. Viareggio has had its own since 1930, and it is the youngest of the family. The artist Uberto Bonetti draws Burlamacco, the carnival's mascot, who appears on the 1931 poster alongside Ondina, a bather in a swimsuit who embodies summer.

Burlamacco is a patchwork of the commedia dell'arte: Harlequin's diamond pattern in a red-and-white chequerboard, the colours of the beach parasols, Pierrot's pompom, Captain Spaventa's great ruff, Rugantino's red cap and Doctor Balanzone's black cape. His name may come either from the painter Buffalmacco, the prankster hero of the Decameron, or from the Burlamacca canal that runs through the port. Both stories are told.

Wars, fascism and fire

The Viareggio Carnival has not always paraded. It stops during the two world wars, from 1915 to 1920 and then from 1941 to 1945. In 1922, it does not take place: a few months earlier, fascist squadristi had ransacked the premises of the port's shipwrights and caulkers, and two young workers had been killed. Under fascism, satire is kept under watch.

In 1946, in a bombed-out town, the festival is revived thanks to a lottery whose first prize is… a calf. In 1948, the float makers move into the first large hangars. In 1954, the parade is broadcast live on RAI, the very year Italian television begins transmitting. In 1958, the whole of Europe watches it on Eurovision.

Then comes the night of 29 June 1960. A fire ravages the hangars: tools, moulds and floats go up in smoke. Eight months later, however, the carnival parades, built in new and larger hangars. Viareggio never gives up.

The master float makers

A giant metal spider with long silver legs, in a cloud of smoke
La Rete (the web), float by Alessandro Avanzini, winner in 2014. Photo: Sailko, CC BY 3.0.

In Viareggio, the float builders, the carristi, are respected artists, and often dynasties. Between the wars, Antonio D'Arliano and Alfredo Pardini vie for the first prizes. After the war come Sergio Baroni, then Silvano Avanzini, whose son Alessandro will win in his turn.

The greatest remains Arnaldo Galli (1926-2019): nearly twenty victories between 1962 and 2004, a record. For the 1973 centenary, he builds, outside the competition, Guerra e pace, nicknamed “La Bomba”: a 20-metre, 35-tonne shell that opens onto the five Olympic rings, with clowns spinning inside them. Many consider it the most beautiful float in history. Galli also worked for Fellini's films and made the giant figures for the opening ceremony of the 1990 football World Cup.

Giant float: a tall woman in a red dress with flowers in her hair, in front of colourful buildings, above the crowd
Adelante, float by Gilbert Lebigre and Corinne Roger, 2019. Photo: Andrea Mazzi Viareggio, CC BY-SA 4.0.

There is even a Frenchman among the great names: Gilbert Lebigre, settled in Viareggio from 1980 with his partner Corinne Roger. The couple wins in 1988 with a float about Madonna, then in 2004 and in 2012. They brought the show down from the float to the street, with performers playing at ground level. After Gilbert's death in 2016, Corinne and their children win first prize again in 2020.

Monumental float covered in huge red poppies surrounding soldiers, on the seafront
Papaveri rossi (red poppies), float by Umberto, Stefano and Michele Cinquini, winner in 2018. Photo: Andrea Mazzi Viareggio, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The new generation is already here: the Cinquini brothers, Jacopo Allegrucci (four victories, including three in a row from 2022 to 2024), Carlo and Lorenzo Lombardi, and Luca Bertozzi, winner in 2026 with a giant wolf, In bocca al lupo.

Laughter that stings

Photograph from 1986: a shaggy orange monster sits enthroned on an enormous peanut, above a crowd
A float from the 1986 carnival. Photo: RThiele, CC BY-SA 3.0.

The Viareggio float is first and foremost a giant caricature. The carnival has always seized on current events: Marconi's telegraph as early as 1903, Mao in 1970, Reagan's “Star Wars” in 1986, the Clinton-Lewinsky affair in 1999. In 2019, Fabrizio Galli, Arnaldo's son, parades a Donald Trump in golden armour, an eagle on one shoulder and Vladimir Putin on the other: the photo goes round the world's press.

Giant float made of suspended screens and doors, marked with internet logos, above the crowd
Non entrare in quel portale (“don't enter that portal”), float by Fabrizio Galli on the dangers of the internet, 2014. Photo: Sailko, CC BY 3.0.

The powerful in papier-mâché

Giant float shaped like a parliamentary chamber: figures in suits on the benches, a red-nosed clown in the centre, giant heads at the top and cheerleaders in the foreground
Uère iz ze party? (“Where is the party?”), float by Gilbert Lebigre and Corinne Roger, 2008: the Italian Parliament turned into a clown theatre. Photo: Sailko, CC BY 2.5.

Caricaturing a politician as a twenty-metre giant is the heart of the float maker's craft. The recipe is that of the newspaper cartoon, in three dimensions: an enormous head, features exaggerated to the point of absurdity, a tiny body or a costume that speaks volumes, and a staging that tells the news at a glance. The mechanisms do the rest: the powerful figure rolls its eyes, opens its mouth, nods its head above the crowd. No one is spared. In 2008, Gilbert Lebigre and Corinne Roger turn the Italian Parliament into a circus, with the Prime Minister as a clown. In the photo, you can even make out the number to dial to vote for this float by text message. And foreign leaders get their turn too, from American presidents to European heads of state.

French presidents on the grill

France does not escape the float makers. In 1960, Silvano Avanzini wins first prize with Carnevale al vertice: de Gaulle, Eisenhower, Khrushchev and Macmillan are seen seeking a very fragile balance of peace. In 2012, Priscilla Borri and Simone Politi take second place with Grandeur: a Nicolas Sarkozy as Napoleon, rearing on a white horse as in David's famous painting, in front of a tottering Arc de Triomphe, between a tricolour staircase and two cannons. Mario Monti and Angela Merkel join the party. In 2016, Gilbert Lebigre and Corinne Roger show Matteo Salvini clutching a “killer doll” with the face of Marine Le Pen. Emmanuel Macron, for his part, has mostly slipped into masked groups, as a sheep and then as a chameleon.

See the float of Sarkozy as Napoleon (2012): the photo and the entry for the float Grandeur on WikiCarnevaleViareggio.

Satire has its limits, however. In 2015, after the attack on Charlie Hebdo, the prefect bans any reference to the newspaper on the floats, for security reasons. The float makers debate it. One of them sums it up: “not censorship, common sense”, because each float carries more than two hundred people in front of a huge crowd.

The Cittadella and the competition today

Large square of the Cittadella with a giant papier-mâché horse's head, in front of the hangars
The Cittadella del Carnevale, a complex of hangar-workshops opened at the end of 2001. Photo: Sailko, CC BY 2.5.

Since the end of 2001, the float makers have worked in the Cittadella del Carnevale, the Carnival Citadel: sixteen giant hangar-workshops arranged around a large oval square, the piazza Burlamacco. A carnival museum opened there in 2017. There you can watch the floats come to life from one year to the next.

At night, a masked performer costumed as a silver Pierrot parades in front of the crowd and illuminated floats
A mask from the night parade, 2019. Photo: Mehrdad.t1987, CC BY-SA 4.0.

The competition pits several categories against one another: the large first-category floats, those of the second category, the masked groups and the single masks. A jury of personalities from the performing arts, art and culture decides between them. The parades, by day and by night, follow one another for about a month on a two-kilometre circuit along the sea, and attract several hundred thousand spectators. The last parade ends with the proclamation of the winners and a fireworks display. In 2021, because of the pandemic, Viareggio paraded for the first time in its history… in September.

Parade dates, tickets, visits to the Cittadella: everything is on the official website of the Viareggio Carnival.

Giant float: a clown in a striped Breton top holding an umbrella, in front of a fairground Ferris wheel
Ridi pagliaccio!, 150th anniversary carnival, 2023. Photo: Cristina Maioglio, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Italy's other float carnivals

Viareggio is not alone. Several Italian towns even compete for the title of “oldest carnival in Italy”, each with its own arguments:

Helmeted orange throwers on a cart, facing the teams on foot, oranges flying through the air
The battle of the oranges at the Ivrea carnival, 2008. Photo: Laurom, public domain.

And then there is Ivrea, in Piedmont, and its spectacular battle of the oranges. According to legend, a miller's daughter, Violetta, cut off the head of the town's tyrant. Every year, thousands of throwers on foot, the people, face the crews of the carts, the tyrant's soldiers, with unsaleable oranges from Sicily and Calabria. As for Venice, its carnival is a festival of masks, not of floats: the exact opposite of Viareggio.

Viareggio and Nice, the rivals

Giant float inspired by The Wizard of Oz: the Tin Man, Dorothy in a yellow dress and a lion, under the slogan Home sweet home
Home sweet home, float by Corinne Roger and the Lebigre family, winner in 2020. Photo: Andrea Mazzi Viareggio, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Born in the same year, 1873, the two seaside resorts are rivals from the start. In 1885, a Viareggio float even throws down a challenge to Nice, for the carnival as much as for sea bathing. The two towns share the same art of papier-mâché and big heads, and many families of Nice carnival builders bear names of Italian origin: Nice remained Italian until 1860. In 1986, Nice, Venice and Viareggio officially draw closer together. And it was a Frenchman, Gilbert Lebigre, who triumphed in Viareggio. The rivalry has become a friendship.

To go back to the origins of all these festivals, from the Saturnalia to Caramantran, read our major chronicle: History of carnivals and parades.

Sources and further reading

Image credits

The floats remain the work of their float makers, credited in each caption. Photographs under free licence, via Wikimedia Commons.