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The crèche through the centuries
The Evangelists Luca
and Matteo have been the first to describe the Nativity. In their passages,
there is already the complete holy representation which since the Middle
Age will be given the latin name of "praesepium", meaning "closed fence",
"manger". Infact, it is told about the humble birth of Jesus, as Luca
reports, "in a manger as there was no place in any hotel" (Ev. 2,7); about
the announcement given to the shepards; about the Magi who came from the
East following the Comet to adore the Infant, who had been announced already
king by the heaven wonders. This event so familiar and so human if, on
the one hand, strikes the palaeo-christians imagination, making less obscure
the mistery of God turning into man, on the other hand, it urges them
to notice the trascendent aspects such as the Infant divinity and Maria's
virginity. In this way it is explained the third century parietal images
in the S. Agnese cemetery and in the catacombs of Pietro and Marcellino
and Domitilla's in Rome, where it is shown a Nativity and the adoration
of the Magi, to whom the Armenian apocryphal vangel gives the names of
Gaspare, Melchiorre and Baldassarre; still, 
above
all, the characters are overburden of allegoric significance added to
the original iconography: the donkey and the ox, added by Origene, interpreter
of the Abacus and Isaia's prophecies, become Jewish people and heathens
symbols; the Magi, whose number of three, fixed by S. Leone Magno, allows
a double interpretation, as the man three ages: youth, maturity and old
age; and, as well, the three human races: semite, giapetica and hamite,
as per biblical narration; the angels, examples of superior creatures;
the shepherds as humanity to redeem and finally Maria and Giuseppe who
are represented in adoration attitude, starting from the XIII century,
to underline the Infant regality. Even the Magi's presents are interpreted
with reference to the double nature of Jesus and his regality: incense,
for his divinity, myrrha, for his being human, gold as the present reserved
to kings. Beginning from the IV century, the Nativity becomes one of the
prevailing subject of religious art; in this production are conspicuous
for their artistic value: the Nativity and Magi adoration of the five-parts
diptych in ivory and precious stones, of the V century, which can be admired
in Milano's Duomo and also the mosaics at the Cappella Palatina in Palermo,
the Battistero of S. Maria in Venice and the S. Maria Maggiore and S.
Maria in Trastevere Basilicas. In these works of art, where the oriental
influence is manifest, the described ambient is the cave, that was used
at that time to shelter the animals, with announcing angels, while Maria
and Giuseppe are represented in a hieratic attitude as Gods or, in antithesis,
as minor characters, nearly not related to the represented event. From
the XIV century, the Nativity has given to the artistic inspiration of
the most celebrated artists, who engaged themselves in frescos, paintings,
sculptures, ceramics, silverware, ivories, and glass windows which make
precious the churches and the residences of nobles and wealthy customers
from all over Europe, worth mentioning Giotto, Filippo Lippi, Piero della
Francesca, il Perugino, Durer, Rembrandt, Poussin, Zurbaran, Murillo,
Correggio, Rubens and many more. The crèche as we still see realized nowadays
has its origin, by tradition, from S. Francesco's anxiety to relive Bethlehem
birth in a natural scenery, with real characters, shepherds, peasants,
monks and nobles all together involved in the commemoration which took
place in 1223 on Christmas night in Greccio;
event that has been masterly painted by Giotto in the Basilica Superiore
of Assisi fresco. Instead, the first example of lifeless crèche, which
has reached us, has been that carved in wood by Arnolfo di Cambio in 1280,
of which still are preserved the remaining statues in the Cappella Sistina
crypt in S. Maria Maggiore in Rome. Since then and until the half of 1400
the artists shape wooden or terracotta statues placed before a painted
background reproducing the Nativity scene landscape; the crèche is exhibited
in churches on Christmas time. Cradle of such artistic activity was Tuscany,
but pretty soon the crèche spreads in the reign of Napoli by Carlo III
di Borbone and in the rest of Italian states. In the '600s and '700s the
neapolitan artists give to the holy representation a naturalistic imprint
inserting the Nativity into the Campania's landscape rebuilt into life
scenes showing characters from noble, middle class and the common people
represented in their daily occupations or in moments of recreation: feasting
in taverns or engaged in dancing and serenades. Further innovation is
the transformation of the statues in wooden manikins with iron-wire limbs,
to give the impression of movement, dressed with garments peculiar to
that epoch and provided with entertainment instruments or working tools
typical of the job practiced and reproduced up to the smallest detail.
This to give likelihood to the scene defined by buildings reproducing
places typical of city or country: markets, taverns, residences, farmhouses,
ruins of ancient pagan temples. To such sumptuous compositions gave their
contribution various artisans and regal court workers and the nobles,
as stated by the splendid embroidered clothes worn by the Magi or other
important characters, often woven in the S. Leucio regal factory. At this
time the ligurian artists also, particularly in Genoa, distinguish themselves,
and the sicilian artists, who, generally, draw their inspiration, in technique
and in the realistic effects, from the neapolitan tradition with a few
exceptions as, for instance, the use of wax in Palermo and Siracusa or
the cold painted terracotta in Savona and Albisola. Still in '700s the
mechanical or movement crèche spreads, with its renowned forerunner in
that manufactured by Hans Schlottheim in 1588 for Cristiano I of Saxony.
The diffusion to popular level is fully achieved in the '800s, when each
family in occasion of Christmas builds at home a crèche, reproducing the
Nativity according to the traditional rules, with material - plaster or
terracotta little statues, paper-pulp and other - supplied by a flourishing
handicraft. The crèche art in Puglia, particularly in Lecce, distinguishes
itself in this century, for the innovating use of paper-pulp, polychrome
or fire-treated, draped over an iron-wire framework and tow. In Rome,
the important and wealthy families were competing to have built the most
imposing crèches, placed in the town itself or in the roman country environment,
allowing their fellow citizens and tourists to visit them. Renowned the
family Forti crèche, placed over the Anguillara's Tower, or Buttarelli's
family in Via de' Genovesi, reproducing Greccio and the S. Francesco's
crèche, or Padre Bonelli's in the Santi XII Apostoli church arcade, partially
mechanical with the reproduction of the Lake Tiberiade ploughed by boats
and the cities of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Nowadays, after the weakening
of the crèche tradition in the '60s and '70s, also due to the introduction
of the Christmas tree, the crèche has come back to flourish, thanks to
the diligence of religious and private citizens, who in associations like
"Amici del Presepe", museums like the Brembo di Dalmine in Bergamo, exhibits,
typical the yearly exhibit "100 Presepi" at "Sale del Bramante" in Rome;
the Arena di Verona exhibit, with its live representations, such as the
recalling of the first crèche of S. Francesco in Greccio, and the living
crèches of Rivisondoli in Abruzzo or Revine in Veneto and, above all,
thanks to the manufacture of crèche artisans, particularly from Napoli
and Sicily, heires of the past crèche schools, have brought back into
the houses and into the Italian squares the Nativity and every single
character which belongs to the crèche christian symbology.
- - Picture: "Angelo" by Raffaele Galasso