During Carnival every joke counts. That is the literal translation of the Italian saying ‘A Carnevale ogni scherzo vale’.
It means that it’s allowed to play a fun practical joke on someone during the Carnival season.
From the anthropological point of view, carnival is a reversal ritual, in which social roles are reversed and norms about desired behavior are suspended.
Winter was thought of as the reign of the winter spirits; these needed to be driven out in order for the summer to return. Carnival can thus be regarded as a rite of passage from darkness to light, from winter to summer: a fertility celebration, the first spring festival of the new year.
But when does it become just senseless vandalism?
Somebody during the Carnival in Barga decided that the miniature trees planted in the flower boxes which decorate the bridge into Barga Vecchia, would look much better it they were down in the park below.
Luckily somebody else thought that the uprooted plants were far better off where they were originally and so went down into the park a couple of days later to recuperate and then replant them back on the bridge.