San Severo Carnival

Carnival in the heart of San Severo

The San Severo Carnival is the festive event organized by the Municipality of San Severo, a key hub in the Province of Foggia, located on the Capitanata plain in Puglia. The festival transforms the squares and streets of the historic center into a vast space of play and color, where masks, confetti, and music accompany the entire community in the period leading up to Lent.

Schools take center stage

The municipal initiative has a specific mission: to put young people at the heart of the celebration. The city's comprehensive institutes and private schools become the protagonists of the allegorical parade, showcasing costumes, masks, and small floats created with the participation of students, teachers, and families. The format, designed as an educational and community-building moment, also includes an awards ceremony for participating groups, making the parade a highly anticipated event for all ages.

Entertainment, processions, and shows

Alongside the schools, the event offers a rich program of widespread entertainment: street performers, stilt walkers, mascots, musical groups, and shows designed for children and families. The carnival procession winds through the city center, involving residents and visitors in a festive atmosphere that combines folk tradition with contemporary fun.

The «Funerale a Carnuvel»

The most iconic moment is the «Funerale a Carnuvel», an ancient folk ritual with which San Severo bids farewell to Carnival. A straw dummy dressed in old clothes, a hat, and a pipe is carried in a procession while masked participants intone mock funeral laments: a symbolic "burial" of Carnival that marks the transition to Lent. It is a ritual rooted in the peasant culture of the Capitanata, when merry groups would go from house to house to the sound of kitchen utensils and the «zighede-bughede», a typical percussion instrument made from a tin can.

A Capitanata tradition

Historically, the San Severo Carnival began on January 17th, the feast of Saint Anthony Abbot, and spanned the entire carnival period with improvised masks, games like the "greasy pole," and noisy processions. The version promoted today by the Municipality of San Severo gathers this legacy and reinterprets it as an inclusive city festival, capable of renewing the bond between new generations and the folkloric roots of the Apulian territory.