
The protagonist was the people: ‘king for a day’, who had permission to party and subvert the rules they were always submitted to.
The Carnival event ended on Tuesday night with the ‘Corsa dei Moccoletti’: everyone was in the street running while holding a candle, and trying at the same time to blow out the candles of the others keeping alive theirs.
A cruel popular entertainment occurred on monte testaccio, the bloody ‘ Ruzzica de li Porci’ –run with the pigs. Pigs with carts rolled down the hill and at the bottom of the slope the spectators competed to get what was left of the animals. This tradition was abolished by Pope Clement IX in 1667.