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The mask. A simple object, yet so full of mystery. Since the most ancient times, it has fascinated humanity with its ability to transform, hide, and reveal. It is as if, the moment someone wears it, the world around them changes. They are no longer just themselves: they become something else, they assume a different identity, they move into a space where ordinary rules no longer apply. But why did humans feel the need to create and wear masks? The answer is lost in the folds of history.

Imagine a prehistoric man, wrapped in the dancing firelight of his tribe, covering his face with a stone mask. He is no longer just a man: he is a spirit, an ancestor, a god walking the earth. The oldest masks we know of date back thousands of years, carved in rock and preserved through time as silent witnesses of rituals long forgotten. But their purpose was clear: to evoke the supernatural, to open a door to a world that cannot be seen with ordinary eyes.

There is something deeply fascinating about this dual nature of the mask. On one hand, it protects the wearer, allowing them to hide, to become something else. On the other, it unsettles the observer: who is behind it? What face lies beneath that fake smile, beneath that carved grimace? This duality makes it powerful, capable of captivating and frightening at the same time.

Throughout history, the mask has been a bridge between humans and gods. Among the Dogon people, for example, masks were not mere objects but incarnations of ancestral forces, tools for maintaining balance between the world of the living and that of the spirits. Inuit shamans used them to travel to the afterlife, to speak with the souls of animals, and to restore harmony with nature. Wearing a mask meant not only changing appearance but embarking on a journey, abandoning one’s self to become something greater.

Then, there is the theater. Here, the mask transforms into a universal language. In ancient Greece, actors wore enormous masks with wide mouths that amplified their voices and allowed the audience to immediately recognize the character. The Latin term “persona” referred to both the mask and the role being played: you were no longer just a person, but a symbol, a story brought to life.

But if there was a moment when the mask reached its peak theatrical power, it was with the Commedia dell’Arte. Imagine an actor who, with a simple gesture, dons a leather mask: in an instant, he becomes Harlequin, Pantalone, Pulcinella. The mask is not just a disguise but a true code of movement, a way of being. Every gesture, every tilt of the body, every tone of voice is guided by that rigid tool covering the face, which paradoxically frees the actor from the need to act with facial expressions, pushing them to express themselves with their entire body.

Yet, the mask has not always been viewed favorably. With the rise of monotheistic religions, many masked traditions were considered dangerous, deceptive, even demonic. Carnival, with its grotesque figures and subversion of social rules, was tolerated only as a brief release before Lent. But the truth is that the mask has never truly yielded. It has continued to exist, to evolve, to change form without ever losing its power.

Perhaps this is its true secret: the ability to adapt, to always be different yet always the same. Because, in the end, the mask is a reflection of humanity, of its desire to play with identity, to explore the boundary between reality and fiction, between the visible and the invisible. Every time we wear one – even metaphorically – we are performing an act as ancient as humanity itself. We are becoming something else, rediscovering parts of ourselves that, perhaps, without that mask, we would never have had the courage to reveal.