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A masquerade ball (or masque) is an event which the participants attend in costume, usually including a mask. Such gatherings were based on increasingly elaborate allegorical pageants and triumphal processions celebrating marriages and other dynastic events of late medieval court life. The famous mascarade that was long remembered as the Bal des ardents was intended as a Bal des sauvages a costumed ball to celebrate the marriage of a lady-in-waiting of Charles VI of France's queen, in Paris, January 28, 1393, where the King and five courtiers dressed as wildmen of the woods ( woodwoses); a torch inadvertently set their costumes afire. Such costumed dances were a special luxury of the ducal court of Burgundy. Masquerade balls were extended into costumed public festivities in Italy during the 15th century Renaissance (Italian, maschera). They were generally elaborate dances held for members of the upper classes, and were particularly popular in Venice. They have been associated with the tradition of the Venetian Carnival.
They became popular throughout mainland Europe in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, sometimes with perilous results. Gustav III of Sweden was assassinated at a masquerade ball by disgruntled nobleman Jacob Johan Anckarström, an event which Eugène Scribe wrote about in his play Gustave III , and which was later made in to an opera Un Ballo in Maschera, by Giuseppe Verdi. Charles VI of France was severely burned when he performed in a masquerade ball (morisco), as one of six hairy "wild men" with costumes of flax and pitch; when they came too close to a torch, the dancers caught fire. As a result, the event became known as the Bal des Ardents or "Ball of the Fiery".
John James Heidegger, a Swiss count, is credited with having introduced the Venetian fashion of a semi-public masquerade ball, to which one might subscribe, to London in the early eighteenth century, with the first being held at HaymarketThe Haymarket is a street in Westminister, London that runs from Piccadilly Circus to Trafalgar Square. It houses a number of high class restaurants, two major theatres (the Theatre Royal and Her Majesty's Theatre) and a cinema complex. It is part of Lond Opera House. Throughout the century the dances became popular, both in England and Colonial AmericaThe United States of America also referred to as the United States U. America ¹ or the States is a federal republic in central North America, stretching from the Atlantic in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west. It shares land borders with Canada in. Its prominence did not go unchallenged; a significant anti-masquerade movement grew alongside the balls themselves. The anti-masquerade writers (among them such notables as Henry FieldingHenry Fielding ( April 22, 1707 October 8, 1754) was a British novelist and dramatist. Born near Glastonbury in Somerset in 1707, Fielding was educated at Eton College. His younger sister, Sarah, was also destined to be a successful writer. After a romant) held that the events encouraged immorality and "foreign influence". While they were sometimes able to persuade authorities to their views, enforcement of measures designed to end masquerades was at best desultory.
Masquerade balls are still held today, though in modern times the party atmosphere is emphasized and the formal dancing usually less prominent. Less formal "costume parties" may be a descendant of this tradition.
The picturesque quality of the masquerade ball has made it a favorite topic or setting in literatureLiterature is literally "an acquaintance with letters" as in the first sense given in the Oxford English Dictionary; the term has, however, generally come to identify a collection of texts. The word "literature" spelled with a lower-case "l" can refer to. Edgar Allan PoeEdgar Allan Poe ( January 19, 1809 October 7, 1849) was an American poet, short story writer, editor and critic. He is best known for his tales of the macabre and his poems. Biography Life Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of actress Eliza Po's short story " The Masque of the Red DeathThe Masque of the Red Death is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe in 1842. It was adapted by film director Roger Corman as a classic film starring Vincent Price, which, like the story, ends with the sentence: And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death" is based on the concept of a masquerade ball in which a central figure is just what he is costumed to be.
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