The Following Is The Detail Of The Day's Amusement During The
Season.
After dinner, which is always early, the masks sally out and repair to the
Corso.
The windows and balconies of the houses are filled with
spectators, in and out of masks. A scaffolding containing an immense number
of seats is constructed in the shape of a rectangle, beginning at the
Piazza del Popolo, running parallel to the Corso on each side, and
terminating near the Piazza di Venezia; close to which is the goal of the
horse race that takes place in this enclosure. Carriages, with persons in
them, generally masked, parade up and down this space in two currents, the
one ascending, the other descending the Corso. They are saluted as they
pass with showers of white comfits from the spectators on the seats of the
scaffolding, or from the balconies and windows on each side of the street.
These comfits break into a white powder and bespatter the clothes of the
person on whom they fall as if hair-powder had been thrown on them. This
seems to be the grand joke of this part of the Carnival. After the
carriages have paraded about an hour, a signal is given by the firing of a
gun that the horse race is about to begin. The carriages, on the gun being
fired, must immediately evacuate the Corso in order to leave it clear for
the race; some move off and rendezvous on the Piazza del Popolo just
behind the scaffolding, from the foot of which the horses start; others
file off by the Via Ripetta and take their stand on the Piazza Colonna.
The horse-race is performed by horses without riders, generally five or six
at a time.
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