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Putignano
is an ancient city in the province of Bari. Its ancient
Carnival is one of the longest in the world. Born in 1394,
it begins on the 26th of December (before then the other carnivals)
and its symbolic mask is "Farinella". This one
was created in 1953 by Domenico Castellano and it is like a jolly with
multicoloured clothes and harness-bells on the hat and on the shoes.
Farinella's name derives from a typical rustic food based on check-pea
meal utilized for cakes or mixed to gravis or condiments or combined
with the figs.
The Carnival of Putignano has beautiful and artistic wagons: they are
very big because the materials used for their construction are light.
For the construction of a carnival cart, 5 or 6 men must work for a
period of 3 or 4 months. Thanks to modern technologies, the movements,
that in the past years were guided by men, now are controlled by the
computers.
The first carnival processions were made in Putignano during the
XIX century, when were utilized small agricultural carts or
old cart adorned with old clothes and straw: the paper-pulp was utilized,
for the first time, by Pugliese brothers in 1935. Many
events and traditions are connected to this carnival: the "Propaggine",
that remembers the translation of the Saint Stephen's relic on the 26th
of December, the ancient "Feast of Bear" on
the 2nd of February, "Candlemas Day", the "Ndondaro"
(Noise), joyful masquerade of the Shrove Tuesday, when groups of people,
with pots, lids and things that get noise, walk in the city as far as
the historical centre; the "Carnival Funeral",
the "Macaroni Bell" of the Shrove Tuesday are
other events that finish, with the Carnival, the second Sunday of the
Lent.
Now the Carnival of Putignano, with its beautiful allegorical cart,
the satirical masks and the masked groups, is one of most famous in
Italy.
Putignano is at about 40 km from Bari , 12 km from Alberobello and
6 km from Castellana.
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