Carnival in Aidone

The Carnival in Aidone is defined as the longest carnival because it lasts until the Saturday following Shrove Tuesday.
Aidone boasts the ancient tradition of carnival feasts. These are simple parties organized in various halls of the town which are opened, according to an age-old custom, to the masks. In these rooms the dancers perform tirelessly to the lively rhythm of the scotz, a figurative dance, very ancient, which can be danced in single couples or all together with a game of exchanging couples, spins and jumps.
In Aidone it is customary to extend the Carnival until the Saturday after the Ashes, the day of the Carnevalone, which is believed to be a legacy of the Ambrosian carnival. It is said that in the past the inhabitants of Aidone, who had to justify the extension of the festival in the middle of Lent to the priests, had invented a nice anecdote: a shepherd boy had hurried up to the village to have fun dancing but when he got there the carnival was already passed; disappointed and embittered, he was preparing to return to his sheep, but the villagers, pityed, reopened the feasts and celebrated with him.

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