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The Sicilian crèche
The
crèche art in Sicily, even if influenced by the neapolitan school, particularly
with regard to the surroundings - reproduction of scenes of everyday life
in villages of the island and with sicilian characters - and at times
the technique - wood and iron-wire made manikins wearing fabric clothes
- yet it proposes various original features variable depending on the
geographical origins. Particularly, there are four areas where it develops
a crèche craftsmanship strongly distinguished: the areas of Palermo, Siracusa,
Trapani and Caltagirone. In Palermo and in the Siracusa territory, where
bee-keeping is wide spread, since the '600 wax has been employed to mould
small statues of Infant Jesus and even whole crèches. In this craftsmanship,
are clearly conspicuous the so named "Bambinai", who operated in Palermo
in the area of the Church of San Domenico between the '600 and '700 centuries;
among them a leading figure was Giulio Gaetano Zumbo, of whom it may still
be admired one of his crèche at the Victoria and Albert Museum of London,
and Giovanni Rosselli remembered by his work of art at the Museo Regionale
di Messina, as well as Anna Fortino, Giacomo Serpotta and Anna La Farina.
The Bambinelli are of refined workmanship, made precious by golden and
silver accessories, with a hieratic expression and represented holding
a cross in a hand. In the '800s are well known the Siracusa's cerari who
manufacture whole crèches or Bambinelli with a joyful or a sleeping expression,
holding a lambkin, a flower or a fruit and immersed in a exultation of
paper-flowers and colorful sequins, inside glass caskets (scarabattole).
Among them excell Fra' Ignazio Macca, whose a few crèche are preserved
at the San Corrado hermitage in Noto and at the Museo Bellomo di Siracusa
and Mariano Cormaci remembered by his wax fullsized crèche, placed in
the Acireale cave. Remarkable also the crèche preserved in the Palazzo
Vescovile in Noto, which represents a countryside life setting, composed
of 38 characters placed in the scenery of the Iblei mountains. In Trapani
for the making of the crèches are employed precious materials, above all
coral, alone, as in the Renaissance age, or with ivory, mother-of-pearl,
bone, alabaster and shells, in Baroque and Rococo ages, when the Nativity
central composition is encircled by architectures in contemporary style
where are represented fantastic and symbolic scenes. Splendid models are
those exhibited at the Pepoli di Trapani and Cordici di Erice museums.
In Caltagirone, where pottery has been manufactured since the XVI century,
crèches are realized in clay and represent, as a frame to the Nativity,
scenes of peasant and pastoral life, vivified by characters typical of
that civilization, as the sleeping shepherd, the piper, the buttermilk
seller, the hunter. Between the end of the XVIII century and the first
half of the XIX century, the best quality production of polichrome crèches
in terracotta can be found at the shop of Bongiovanni brothers, Giuseppe
and Giacomo and their nephew Giuseppe Vaccaro, excellent artist. Nevertheless,
at the beginning of the '700s there were already celebrated artisans as
the santari Branciforti and Margioglio who contributed to impose Caltagirone
as the "City of the crèche". Generally, in the whole island, since '600s,
there has been wide spreading of the crèche manufactured by the same technique
employed in the production of altar statues: small wooden statues wearing
fabric clothes dip in a glue bath to make them stiff and of bright colours.
Among the most famous manufacturers of this kind of crèche, the leader,
Salvatore Matera, Nolfo, Ciotta, the Pisciotta's and the Tipa's.