Red Nose

The typical mask of RONCIGLIONE  is Naso Rosso () who, during the Carnival celebrations, organizes the so called “pitalata”: a tasting of rigatoni with tomato sauce, served from special plates shaped like chamber pots! Everything  walking through the streets of the town, running after the spectators or going into their houses!

We can surely define it a historical mask of the town, as “The Society of Red Noses” was born in 1900 from the idea of four jolly people in RONCIGLIONE who, in this way,  wanted to represent the satirical and very pleasant essence of any inhabitant in RONCIGLIONE with his independent, ironical attitude towards life.

Those four nice  people invented a new way to make people enjoy the days of Carnival, handing out “rigatoni  from a chamber pot with tomato sauce… using wooden forks and wearing white loose shirts and a  grotesque, red nose…in the evening they would organize a dancing party for the members of the Society and their families…”

Nowadays, the tradition is still respected even if “modernized”, because the ancient chamber pots in ceramic  have become precious objects for collectors, with beautiful views of the medieval town of RONCIGLIONE painted on them and the less hygienic wooden forks have been substituted by the plastic, disposable ones.