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Celebrating festivals by wearing masks and disguises has been customary in Europe for many centuries. The eighteenth-century masquerade, forerunner of the fancy dress balls and parties of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, owes its origin to the Venetian pre-Lent Carnival, developed in the seventeenth century. This was a public, open-air event in which all classes participated in dancing, feasting, and practical jokes. The revelers wore masks and either fanciful decorative costumes or all-concealing dark cloaks called dominoes, to enjoy flirtations and intrigue incognito....
