The word "Carnival" refers today to a whole galaxy of often very diverse ritual events which still engage at the end of winter a large number of European individuals and communities. Yet if we scratch just under the surface, in European carnivals there appears to be some striking similarities of themes, characters and situations, so that mummers girdled by cowbells; harlequins wearing high conical caps; a mock nuptial cortege; etc., are found in surprisingly similar forms from the Southern Balkans to Iberia, and from Central Europe to the Italian peninsula. Such similarities are found all the more visible when we move away from the towns, and into the world of European rural villages, where winter masquerades still bear some direct affinity to the ancient rituals which have fostered the onset of the new agrarian year since a very early age. In this sense, Carnival reflects some elements of the original agrarian core of European culture, and still is a very powerful and captivating symbol, one in which Europeans can still mirror and identify themselves.From 2007 to 2009, Carnival King of Europe, a project involving a network of ethnographic museums of ITALY, FRANCE, CROATIA, BULGARIA, MACEDONIA, successfully gathered a considerable amount of evidence as to the structural similarities of Carnivals throughout Europe. So, fieldwork was carried out in 5 countries, a film was made ("Carnival King of Europe" by Kezich & Trentini, DVD, 22'), an internet site (www.carnivalkingofeurope.it) was launched, and a rich and lively itinerant exhibition was brought from San Michele all'Adige in the Italian Trentino to Zagreb, Sofia and Skopjie. Carnival King of Europe II (2010/12) aims at extending the project along the very same lines to 4 new countries (SPAIN, POLAND, SLOVENIA, ROMANIA), each represented by an important ethnographic museum, as a further step towards a survey and a general reappraisal of Carnival culture in the whole of Europe.