The tradition of the Nativity play

It can be useful to know the origins of the Christian tradition leading to the making of the crib, which has gone on for 2000 years with unchanged fascination.

 

The reason why we celebrate Christmas on December, 25th
Christmas tradition from 400 a.C. to 1200 a.C.
St. Francis from assisi and the nativity representation
The iconography of the crib
The Sacred Mounts
The neapolitan crib
The Epiphany Fest
The christmas crib in the art
To learn more
Many cribs, all to visit
The crib of our memory
Bibliografia

The reason why we celebrate Christmas on December, 25th

It was Julius I, Pope from 337 to 353, who established the celebration of the birth of Christ on December 25th, a few years after Emperor Constantine promulgated the Edict of Religious Freedom, of which the Christians were the major beneficiaries, from the City of Milan. (313 A.D)
December 25th was chosen because, on that date, the non-Christians, the so called Pagans, celebrated the Winter Solstice( the longer daylight or the returning of the sun, "Sol Invictus") with all kinds of festivities. These celebrations had a longer history; probably dating back to the ancient Egyptians and to the worshippers of "RA", the divinity of the sun, as well as to the Mithraic celebrations, an ancient persian cult which also worshipped a "sun-god" on December 25th.
In reAference to the sun, the Evangelist Luke also wrote in his Gospel that, "..because of the tender mercy of our God by which the sun (daybreak) from on high will visit us, to shine on those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace." (Lc.1, 78-79).
The ancient Church's Fathers also used to refer to Jesus as the "Sun of Justice". It is therefore evident the intention of the Church, in the making of a christian world, to change pagan feasts into a christian one, Christmas, the "birthday" of the Sun of Justice.
The celebration of Christmas on December 25th was also accepted by the Oriental Church in the year 380.

Christmas tradition from 400 a.C. to 1200 a.C.

Between year 432 and 440, Pope Sisto III moved to Rome some fragments supposed belonging to Sacred Cradle, leaving them on Liberian basilica, dedicated from that moment to Holy Mary in honour of Efeso Concilium Dogma of 431 in which Mary has been defined “Mother of God”. From that moment the Basilica took the name of “Santa Maria Maggiore”.
In this Church took origin the tradition of Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, a traditional celebration in Betlem too.
Since VIII century, Christ Birth and Resurrection have been object of sacred representations in costume, from Vangelo to churches and squares involving entire towns. The religiousness of these performances started to get less and less significant so that Friars and Priests blamed this vulgarisation from their pulpits. In 1207 Innocenzo III ( cardinal Giovanni Lotario, Pope from 1198 to 1216) banned this representations once forever.

St. Francis from assisi and the nativity representation

The 24th of December 1223 is an important date in the tradition of the Crib.
On that day St. Francis from Assisi came to Greccio (RI) with his inseparable friend Brother Leo and askAed Pope Onorio III (Cardinal Cencio Savelli, Pope from 1216 to 1227) for a cancellation of Pope Innocenzo III’ s ban. St. Francis saw his request granted thanks to an influential friend’s support: Giovanni Velita, a generous and powerful local man, who also gave the saint some animals and a crib full of straw. With those gifts St. Francis revived Christ’s birth with Greccio’s villagers gathering together in a cave with the bells ringing to celebrate Christmas Eve. People arrived on foot, on horseback or riding donkeys, unconsciously acting as the shepherds who had welcomed the Redeemer so many years before. In the cave Cardinal Ugolino celebrated Mass among the animals and the speechless crowd. According to the Legend St. Francis had a vision of baby Jesus coming to life into his arms. That vision was confirmed by some witnesses.
After St. Francis’s death two years after this event, Franciscan friars spread this tradition and that’s why in 1986 St. Francis was proclaimed the Patron Saint of the Crib.
The Greccio event was painted by Giotto in his series of paintings about St. Francis’s life in the Upper Basilica of Assisi. The example of Giotto was followed by many other painters.

The iconography of the crib

We must point out that the setting of the Crib, as it has been handed down for centuries, comes from the Apocryphal Gospels, the Canonical ones lacking some particular details. The presence of the ox and the donkey, for instance, is written in the Gospel of James. The number of the Magi was much-discussed, too, till Leone Magno I ( Pope from 440 to 461, who prevented Attila, king of the Huns, from conquering Rome, meeting him at Peschiera) decreed that the wise men were three as the gifts they offered to Jesus.
One of the most important performances, perhaps the most ancient in Italy, is due to Arnolfo di Cambio, who, in 1289, made little sculptures surrounding Jesus’ crib relics, in the church of Santa MaAria Maggiore in Rome.
Other early works appeared in 1324 in the chapel of the Alagni in Amalfi (SA) and in 1370 in the house of noble Vermerio di Limburgo in the Netherlands; they were probably used as little shrines containing some images of the Nativity.
The iconography of the Crib spread out during the fifteenth century thanks to some great painters: Botticelli in the Adorazione dei Magi (Firenze, Galleria degli Uffizi) portrayed some members of the Medici’s family and Luca and Andrea della Robbia made some Nativity scenes in baked clay, too: one of these works can be seen in the monastery of Verna (AR) and another, which represents the shepherds and the Magi on the beautiful landscape painted by Benozzo Gozzoli, is in the Duomo of Volterra (PI).
This kind of symbolism was soon acknowledged by all levels of society, especially families, who grew fond of reviving every year Jesus’ birth with little sculptures representing people and landscape elements. So the Crib became a rite not to be easily reneged by any Christian, and it became so popular in Italy (in particular in Tuscany, in Sicily, in Naples and in the North, thanks to the Sacri Monti) that it is now considered like a minor form of art.

The Sacred Mounts

In 1482 the religious Bernardino Caimi returned to his homeland after a long trip to Palesatine, where he was the custodian of those sacred spots. The council appointed him to the Varallo Sesia Community. Father Bernardino had a dream: to reproduce Jesus' Life in the most important locations around a statue of the Madonna he brought back from the Holy Land. And this is how the Varallo's SACRO MONTE was born. Gaudenzio Ferrari was the man appointed to make the terracotta statues for the scenes, including the one of the Birth of Jesus.
Like in Varallo, another Sacro Monte was built also in Varese. The original idea came from the capuchin friar Gian Battista Aguggiari from Monza, who lived in the CasAbeno convent and used to visit the convent near the Church of Santa Maria del Monte twice a week, to fulfill his function’s duties. The work, started in the December of 1604 under the supervision of Giuseppe Bernascone, AKA the Lefty, was completed only in 1680. the third of the fifteen chapels of the Rosary was dedicated to the Crib, and the statues in the chapel are attributed to Martino Retti from Viganello.
To remain in Lombardia we must remember the wooden Crib carved by Giovanni de Lupis in 1480, which desplayed in the main church in Rivolta d’Adda. Soon after we find the composition (dated 1490) in Basilica of the Mortara’s San Lorenz, attributed to Lorenzo di Mortasa.
In the city Of Milan, in the San Marco church, you can see the XVIII sec. Crib made by Francesco Landonio, made with blended and painted cardboard, instead of wood or terracotta.
The Trento Council, closet in 1563, estabilished precise rules on the Saints and the Cult of Relics, promoting in this way the spread of the Crib as a religious and popular expression.

The neapolitan crib

Among the many christmas traditions, which each italian region can be proud of, one worth mentioning is the Neapolitan one. In the Crib, as in everything in their rich culture, Neapolitans were able to express the typical creativity characteristic of the parthenopean people.
In 1507 Pietro Belverte, from Lombardy, carved in Naples 28 statues for the Friers of Saint Dominic Major. For the first time the setting of the Crib was in a grotto made of stones, probably brought over from Palestine, to which they added the ever present traditional tavern.
The XVI Century brought some innovations. Domenico Impicciati was probably the first to produce statuettes in terracotta for his private use. To one of the "characters", something else really new, he gave the resemblance of a client, the sorrentine nobleman, Matteo Mastrogiudice, who was serving at the court of the Aragons.
In 1534 Gaetano da Thiene arrived in Naples; he had already shown his great love for the Crib in Saint Mary Major in Rome. The skill of Gaetano increased the popularity of the Crib particularly the one, especially appreciated, made for the hospital of the "Incurabili". It was also in the beginning of the XVI Century that the Piarist Priests produced the first Crib in baroque style. The statuettes gave place to flexible mannequins made of wood and dressed in typical costumes.
The first Neapolitan mannequins, with detachable parts, were of human size but were gradually reduced to approximately 20 centimetre in hight.
The most famous Crib was made by the Piorists for the Duchess in 1627. The church of the Piorists dissembled the Crib every year and reassembled it the following Christmas. This too was another innovation because since then Cribs were static. In 1640, thanks to Michele Perrone, the mannequins retained their wooden head and limbs but an inside towed wire gave them the resemblance of real live posture. By the end of the Seventeen Century the Neapolitan Crib was played in theatrical form, with the tendency of mixing both the sacred and the profane, in order to recreate in an artistic way the everyday life of people in their small squares, in the streets or in narrow alleys.
Popular persons in their traits were portrayed in the Crib such as midgets, women with goiter, beggers, tavern-keepers, hosts, cobblers, in a word, the representatives among the humble and the derelicts of society and all those poor people among whom Jesus was born. Of particular significance was the presence of ruins of ancient Greece and Rome, as if to signify the triumph of Christianity over the ruins of those pagan temples and their columns. In the Eighteen Century the Neapolitan Crib experienced its golden period by going out of the churches where it was the object of religious devotion to enter into the homes of the aristocracy.
Noblemen and wealthy citizens competed with each other for the best refined Christmas display. Giuseppe Sanmartino, probably the greatest Neapolitan sculptor of the XVIII Century, was particularly skillful in molding statuettes in terracotta. He started a real school of Crib artists. Their artistic productions are, still today, those statuettes we take out of their boxes to make real, in their stillness, the spirit of the christmas Crib. It is the same stillness described in the Proto-evangelium of James, where we read that the night Jesus was born for a moment the world stood in silent stillness. It was said that the Crib is a minor artistic work; nonetheless innumerable were the artists, like fashion and dress designers, tailors, experts in ceramics, goldsmiths and a great variety of artisans who, even if little known and not mentioned in any official review, gave beginning to a true and proper school of art. Such artists left a mark in the toponymy of Naples, (See Vico dei Figuranti; english, as in ballet-dancers' alleys) and where the "poor" were called "Forcellisti", deriving from "Forcella", the popular Ward where they worked.
The Neapolitan Crib, also called "Presepio" still continues to parade the "Characters" of that Holy Night, alongside others of later history and it is also reported in our modern Press.
The Crib is truly the mirror of the World!
It is in fact from Italy, especially, that the popularity of the Crib spread all over the ancient World and in the "new" World as well .Worth mentioning is the "animated" Crib created in the 80's, by Father Renato Saudelli, an Italian born Consolata Missionary, in Somerset, New Jersey and which attracted thousand and thousand of visitors from the greater New York area and it was extensively reported in the Press, especially the New York Times. Father Saudelli created, with great ingenuity, a mixture of static and "animated" scene where little people in statuettes moved about, even if in a restricted area, as real people going after their daily affairs.
Spectacular was the coming of the night with myriad of stars and well known constellations and with the "biblical" star of Bethlehem leading the Shephards and later, at the Epiphany, the Magi, to the cave where Jesus was, with Joseph and Mary, His Mother. What Father Saudelli did not produced himself, he got it from Italy, from the Neapolitan christmas artistry. Unfortunately his tradition lived on only a few years as Father Saudelli left America to give his life to the lepers of Gambo, Ethiopia. It was the Crib which inspired him! Viva il Presepio! - Long live the Crib!

The Epiphany Fest

Along with the celebration of Christmas, the popular tradition took great interest in the celebration of the Epiphany, taking inspiration from the Scriptures and embellishing it with popular beliefs and legends.
It is from Christian tradition that we know the Magi, guided by a star, (a comet) came to Bethlehem to worship the Baby Jesus. The Bible also relates that they were Astrologers and by a Christian tradition, that they were of a royal lineage.
It was Pope Leo I, the Great, who established they were three in number. It is both by a mixture of tradition and legend that, by the IX century, we know their names, Melchior, Gaspar and Balthasar and that they represented different people and races. This explains the universality of Christmas, as Jesus revealed himself to all Nations and people. There is clearly an intent to teach behind the story of the Epiphany which was celebrated first in the eastern part of the Roman Empire and later in Rome.
There is a legend which tells that in 315, St. Helena, the mother of Emperor Constantine, found the bodies of the Magi and gave them to the care of St. Eustergius, bishop of Milan.
It was in Milan that Emperor Constantine gave freedom to the Christians in 313 (Edict of Milan). As the legend goes, the transport of the precious relics was done in a cart pulled by oxen and a wolf!
After several years and various events, the bodies of the Magi finally ended up in Milan, where they remained for eight centuries in the church dedicated to Saint Eustorgius. It is now history that in 1154 Frederick I, Barbarossa, from Germany, was declaread King of Lombardy in Pavia and that in 1162 he came with an army to Italy and instructed his Chancellor, Archbishop Von Reinald Dassel, to include the bodies of the Magi as booty of war. So, the famous "biblical travellers" ended up for good in Cologne, Germany.
In 1903 a small part of the relics was brought back to the Lombardy Capital, Milan, thanks to the friendly relationship between the Archbishop of Milan, Cardinal Ferrari and Cardinal Fisher, the Archbishop of Cologne.
Another Lombard legend, which probably originated in Varese, tells that, during the transport from Milan to Cologne, the bodies of the Magi passed through Busto Arsizio and a little village in Savigo Street. There the people of Busto dedicated, in honor of the Magi, a City Gate, which, unfortunately was destroyed in 1880. It is for this reason that, still today, on the Vigil of the Epiphany, the people of Busto remember those happenings with a great bonfire in the village in Savigo Street, followed, the day after, by a great procession in ancient customs, thus celebrating both the journey of the Magi to Bethlehem and the transfer of their bodies to Cologne. The devotion of the people of Busto to the Magi is also tied to events of the City's history.
In 1407, the Condottiere Ottobone III, a captain of a band of mercenaries, was determined to take possession of Busto but the Consuls and the people of the City, according to the custom of the time, made vows to the Magi that, if they had protected their city from that danger, they would honor them with a Feast of particular devotion. The siege was suddenly terminated and the Condottiere, without a plausible motive, moved his troops elsewhere.
In February 1408, just outside the City walls, another danger threatened Busto. Facino Cane, who had served as a soldier with the Visconti's, was convinced that, by taking Busto Arsizio, all the territory of the Seprio would fall under his control. As the legend has it, the Magi appeared menacing to Facino, forcing him to turn back without looting the area, as was his intention, and looking for booty.

 

The christmas crib in the art

Since the beginning of Christianity they saw the necessity to make more understandable the events of Jesus' life by portraying them in art works such as paintings and frescoes.
One of the most popular iconography was that of the Adoration of the Magi.
In 1525 Bernardino Luini started, at the shrine of the Blessed Virgin of Miracles in Saronno, a series of frescoes with an Adoration of the Magi in a mountainous setting. He also painted an Adoration of the Magi and an Adoration of the Shepherds in the Cathedral church of Sant'Abbondio in Como. Both works, done in 1514 and which can also be found in the same Cathedral of Sant'Abbondio, were part of the shutters covering the wooden ancon.
Worth mentioning are also the frescoes in Santa Maria foris Porta in Castelseprio. The scene portrayed, which dates back to the IX century, takes inspiration from the apocryphal gospels such as the Proto-evangelium of James and the gospel of the pseudo Mattew. Also in Santa Maria foris Porta we find an Adoration of the Baby Jesus believed to be of the XV century; it was removed in 1936 and now is in the church of San Martino in Carnago.
A Nativity and an Adoration of the Magi with a procession of exotic animals, painted by Giovan Paolo Lomazzo, are in the church of Santa Maria la Nova, in Caronno Pertusella.
Other frescoes, by Giovan Battista della Cerva, of about 1542 and which portray the Adoration of the Magi, are in the church of Santa Croce in Gazzada together with another, by Francesco de Tatti, dating to the beginning of the XV century but which, originally, was in the Oratorio of San Bernardino. Again worth mentioning is the Adoration of the Magi, painted in fresco in the church of San Giacomo in Gerenzano, attributAed to a milanese painter of the second decennium of the XVI century. In the same church of San Giacomo there is a fresco of the Annunciation which, like the Madonna portrayed in the Adoration of the Magi, recalls in a very significant way, due to her kneeling posture, the position of her hands, the bowing of the head and the details of her hair, the Madonna painted on the right wall, between Saints Sebastiano and Rocco, in the church of San Michele in Venegono Inferiore.
In the same church of San Michele, an Adoration of the Magi is also painted in fresco on the lunette in the upper wall of the entrance portico. It was perhaps done by a lesser known artist, nonetheless it is equally expressive of the devotion of the people of Venegono to the Feast of the Epiphany.

To learn more

To further deepen the knowledge of the origins of the Crib and of the various traditions both in Italy and in Europe you can access to the section of the "thesis", which we wrote about in February 2009, by Elisa Bartolomei of Venegono. (Download here the .pdf of chapter one).
Elisa, who enrolled in the course for a degree in Business Linguistic Expertise with the Faculty of Linguistic Sciences and Foreign Litteratures at the Catholic University "Sacro Cuore" in Milan (Italy), with her dissertation formalized and gave proper recognition to the cultural value of the Living Crib of Venegono Inferiore.
In her thesis, titled The minor religious Tourism: The Cribs in Venegono (1960-2000), she first analyzes the history of the Crib from its origins to our own days, with detailed references relating to both Italy and Europe en large and then she dwells particularly on the Comboni Missionaries' Crib in Venegono Superiore (Varese) and on the Presepiatts' Living Crib of Venegono Inferiore (Varese).
In the introduction of her thesis (download here the "Introduction" .pdf) there is this emblematic phrase which helps to fully understand the core theme of her work: "...This phenomenon can be considered as a particular type of religious tourism, which distinguishes itself from the "classic" one that deals with churches, monasteries, shrines and sacred places as tourist destinations throughout a year; this one instead is more of a seasonal phenomenon, limited to the Christmas Holidays and the object is a reenactment of the Christmas Spirit which differs from the commercial character that is prevailing in recent years. The one in Venegono Inferiore consists of an artistic performance with actors involved; the other, in Venegono Superiore, is "thematic" in character with the aim of leading people to reflect on the great issues of the world around us".

Many cribs, all to visit

As we have seen, the crib is a centuries old tradition which is still deeply rooted in our own days and many initiatives are generated to perpetuate the memory of the birth of Jesus. We mention here the most important cribs of our area.
One of the largest museums dedicated to the crib is in Lombardy, in Brembo di Dalmine (BG). It was done by the Reverend Giacomo Piazzoli.
Among the associations of "Friends of the Crib", worth mentioning, is the one of Groppello d'Adda (BS).
In the region of Piemonte we must rightfully mention the permanent exhibition of the crib at the sanctuary of Oropa (Biella)
Among the initiatives dedicated to the crib in the areas closest to Venegono, we dutifully mention the one of Albusciago di Sumirago (VA), where Don Adelio Pedelli (pastor from 1964 to 1967) created a museum dedicated to this kind of art, bringing together in a permanent exhibition about three hundred cribs from all over the world.
Famous in our area is also the crib that the Comboni Missionaries, for over fifty years, make in their centre of Venegono Superiore (VA) with perseverance and dedication. Their themes are very carefully dedicated to address social issues with particular reference to those of the third world.
Noteworthy is also the submerged crib of Laveno: 43 stone statues of Vicenza are placed at the bottom of Lake Maggiore in front of the town. Impressive is the placing, under water, of the statue of the Child Jesus by divers.
In the village of Vinago di Mornago, since 1979, they play a living crib whose unique feature is the involvement and participation of the people in the event: the series of sacred paintings are shown by, at least, 120 of the 500 inhabitants of the village.
Also in Bedero Valtravaglia, on the occasion of Christmas, they celebrate with a living crib by taking advantage of the spectacular natural habitat to tell the story of the birth of Jesus.
At Bedero, as at Vinago, the participation of townsfolk in chanting the popular Christmas carols underlines how the crib is, at its core, the celebration of the message of Christmas, Christ who was born a baby to live among us, all the while the artistic display enriches the message and its contents.

The crib of our memory

The history of the crib was not only written by famous artists, nor did it come about through major events. There is a history made of more simple and modest things; it is the story of the crib that is within each of us.
Some of us, especially the elderly, still recall the wanderings in the woods in search of softer moss to use as cover bed or the rocks better suited to reproduce a miniature mountain on which to place the castle of King Herod, or a stump as a cradle for the baby Jesus.
Along with the search for natural material for the construction of the crib, others, skilfully, use more sophisticated techniques to render the original habitat of the Nativity: caves and mountains of gypsum, sawdust to simulate the sand of the desert, aluminium paper for creeks and lakes, etc…
By the passing of the years, the homemade cribs are enhanced by coloured lights, small devices which make the statuettes to move and the wheels of the mill to turn; often these cribs include rivers, waterfalls and fountains with small pumps to let the water move as in the natural setting.
Even today the most “aficionados” make their crib with perfectly plastered statuettes or with paper-mâché, rejecting the more modern plasticized ones as less expressive. They buy or build miniature houses and accessories such as bridges, well, fire, etc…, made with natural material like cork, bark and twisted branches. We all remember with nostalgia some of those cribs of our younger days and it is, perhaps, because of this passion that a group of volunteers, in the 1972, started this “adventure” which we are intending to tell you about in the following pages.

Bibliografia:

BONDIOLI, Pio, Storia di Busto Arsizio, Varese, La Tipografica Varese, 1987.
CAPOZZI, M. D., Il Cardinale Andrea C. Ferrari Arcivescovo di Milano, Milano, Istituto di Propaganda Libraria, 1954.
COTTINI, Paolo, Di Festa in Festa. Sagre e tradizioni popolari nel Varesotto, Varese, Lativa, 1991.
GARGANO, Pietro, Il Presepio. Otto secoli di storia, arte, tradizione, Milano, Fenice 2000, 1995.
GREGORI, Mina, Pittura a Como e nel Canton Ticino dal Mille al Settecento, Milano, Cariplo Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde S.p.A., 1994.
GREGORI, Mina, Pittura tra Ticino e Olona. Varese e la Lombardia nord-occidentale, Milano, Cariplo Cassa di Risparmio delle Provincie Lombarde S.p.A., 1992.