El Mondo alla Rinverscia (Fiumalbo Carnival)

The Carnival of Fiumalbo, between irony and memory

In the heart of the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, the Municipality of Fiumalbo (Province of Modena, Emilia-Romagna) preserves one of the most characteristic Carnivals of the mountains. Here, the festival is not just about color and costumes, but the re-emergence of a deep collective memory that intertwines popular satire and historical re-enactment. The village, considered one of the most beautiful in Italy, provides the natural backdrop for two distinct and complementary events.

El Mondo alla Rinverscia: the parade of the world upside down

The allegorical parade "El Mondo alla Rinverscia" stages an ancient theme: the world upside down, where the social order is overturned. For a few hours, roles, hierarchies, duties, and characteristics are inverted: the mayor becomes a street sweeper, the man carries the donkey on his shoulders, the dog holds a sausage on a leash, and Virtue and Vices swap roles. It is a revival of a tradition of medieval origin, in which the community allowed itself, for the duration of Carnival, to ironically subvert daily conventions.

The parade winds through the historic center of Fiumalbo with about a hundred costumed participants, including floats and living pictures designed to surprise and entertain both young and old.

The Shrove Tuesday torchlight procession, since 1512

The most solemn and anticipated moment is the Shrove Tuesday torchlight procession, a tradition that the village has passed down for over five hundred years. According to legend, around 1512 Duke Alfonso I d'Este visited Fiumalbo and, to test the loyalty of its inhabitants, began to speak ill of himself in disguise: the reaction of the Fiumalbo residents was so heated that the Duke, grateful, granted them the privilege of freely celebrating Carnival, which was then forbidden in the rest of the duchy.

Even today, at dusk, hundreds of large torches made with birch or alder wood and rags cross the village, accompanied by the sound of horns and bells. The procession, led by the figures of Alfonso I and Lucrezia Borgia, starts from the Seminary and descends towards Ca' Monia to the confluence of the two streams, where the torches are thrown into a large bonfire that symbolically marks the end of Carnival and the beginning of Lent.

A mountain identity

More than just a festival, the Carnival of Fiumalbo is an intangible heritage that tells the identity of this Apennine village. The combination of popular satire, historical re-enactment, and fire ritual makes the event unique in the Emilia-Romagna region and attracts visitors from all over the Province of Modena and beyond.

• Where: historic center of Fiumalbo, Modenese Apennines (Emilia-Romagna)
• "El Mondo alla Rinverscia" Parade: the Sunday before Shrove Tuesday, from the afternoon
• Torchlight procession and bonfire: the evening of Shrove Tuesday
• Tradition: the torchlight procession dates back to 1512