Masks

Masks have been apart of our life since the beginning of our civilization. Now adays masks are used primarily for certain events, such as parties or Halloween, but they still have the central purpose. Masks main purpose has always been to hide the owners identity from other people. In the 16th century Venitian masks were primarily used during the Carnevale (Carnival of Venice), but were also used in many different occassions. Theatre was one occassion where masked were used and were very affectively used to conceal the identity of the characters. In Much Ado About Nothing masks are used in to decieve and hide identity of characters. One scene involves the festival where the people used masks to conceal their identities to their dance partners. Benedick and Beatrice have an encounter (Beatrice isn't wearing a mask) where beatrice rips apart Benedicks man-hood, and Don John uses the fact that Claudio (who he pretends to think is Benedick) has a mask on to falsify his report that Don Pedro is taking Hero for himself. Also masks are used (sometimes) at the end of the show to conceal the identity of what "Hero's identical cousin" looks like in order to marry her to Claudio. Both of these situations show that that the characters didn't know who was behind the mask, which also helped the audience understand who was who and what was going on.

Google (16th century masks, and Much Ado About Nothing masks)