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 he
birth of Jesus has always been represented by the figurative arts , ever
since it’s introduction
into the liturgical calendar, that has provoked various
discussions, even one about the exact date to use. It seems that
the date of 25th December was introduced between the third and
the fourth century. The first certain proof
of this date of the year
is given by the roman chronograph, a series of historical details
of the church, and these date back to the year
354.
Scenes
of the Gospels (and the apocryph gospels also) are to be found in
frescoes in the catacombs and on the sarcophagi of the palaeo-christian
era. Subsequently, palaeo-christian and carolingian art used
evangelistic and traditional sources as inspiration, celebrating the
Holy Event with all the material available (works in ivory, wood,
frescoes, marble reliefs etc.). In order to have a complete Nativity in
three dimensions, with figurines, it is necessary to arrive at the
marble crib by Arnolfo of Cambio, dated 1289, at the present kept in the
Sistina Chapel, that is universally recognized as the most antique known.
this must be considered only as a historical reference though,
representing a particularly important artistic impression but being a
long way from the cultural and common phenomenon of
the “family” Christmas crib, i.e. , the one
kept at home.
A
great contribution to this end came from St.Francesco, who, in 1223, in
Greccio (hence the french expression for the Christmas crib, “creche’
), celebrated Christmas,
giving instructions to bring a manger to the castle of the noble
who was his host and inviting
shepherds, as his guest , who came to adore the Lord. A miracle
happened, the owner of the castle told how he witnessed the Saint
holding a “Baby”. Then
in 1234 the Franciscan friars received a gift from the bishop of
Aversa; a small church that was on the same spot as where a century
later the basilica of St.Lorenzo Maggiore was built, a locality not
very far from 
St.Gregorio Armeno. The minor friars surely gave an
impulse in the celebrating of Christmas. the legend of Greccio was still
certainly being kept alive, this was guaranteed by the
fellow-brothers of Francesco. Also the fact of having in the
vicinity the street where
craftsmen made the holy figurines contributed
to the diffusion of the Christmas crib.the phenomenon though, was
doomed to remain only in the church circles for still a long time to
come. The fourteenth century offers us two examples (of those surviving
up to this day) of the “ liturgical” diffusion of the holy
representation: the wooden statues of the Allemanno brothers and the
marble figurines of the Rossellini brothers. The examples are quoted,
once again, only for their artistic and historical interest, considering
that in both cases we are talking about objects of worship and not of
devotion. the difference, extremely evident to any neapolitan, merits to
be explained. Worship, in fact, is reserved (and rightly so) to
religious services, in church. In every home though, each neapolitan
family has a “devotion” for a certain holy object, that could be a
cross, a particular saint or the crib. This is a tradition which surely
has an antique greek-roman basis, but to say that the neapolitan crib
has it’s origin in the Demetra cult seems to be really excessive.
We
are now in the XVI century; St.Gaetano of
Thiene, in 1534,
prepared a crib in a chapel next to the “Incurabili” hospital
( then known as only St. Maria del Popolo ). the small church was called
St. Maria della stalletta, (St.Mary’s
of the stable ) being the first to be made from an old stable (
note the miraculous coincidence ). St. Gaetano was the first to make the
changes that characterized the difference between the “canonical”
cribs
( intending
church cribs ) and the
family cribs: the introduction of figurines dressed up as people
from Judea, in the time of Jesus, but in clothes
fashionable in the period of the saint. This had such an enormous
success among the common people
that Gaetano of Thiene is considered the true inventor
of the “modern” neapolitan Christmas crib, and, perhaps ( but
we cannot be sure ) it is not the first
for the time factor, but, it is certainly
the most appreciated in the world today.
There
is still a lot more to tell regarding the long history of crib making.
the figurines are now made of wood, not articulated in any way; this
means they are not very expressive and are not inter-changeable.
The
sixteenth century saw the introduction of wooden figures that were
articulated. About half way through the century, Pietro
Ceraso, a very clever craftsman,
was the first to have the idea of “dividing” the head and the
limbs from the body. he was commissioned to make the Christmas crib of
St. Maria in Portico. This was the biggest example
ever made using this technique. Just as important was the crib
made for the basilica of St.Gregorio Armeno, on show to the public until
the 1920’s. the invention of the articulated figures is traditionally
attributed to Michele Perrone, another clever neapolitan craftsman. Then
there was a real revolution concerning the making of the crib figurines,
this change meant that they were made of different materials all used
together, even for the same figure i.e. wooden or wax
heads, canvas-plastic. An important detail appears to be the
reduction in the size of the pieces, this came about at the end of the
century. During the entire 16 th century figurines were used of quite a
big size,
after this period though “terzine” were generally used,
that were
figurines of about 40 cm. tall.
At
the beginning of the seventeenth century the crib figurine as we know it
was born: the head is made of
terracotta, a material that
gives the figure much more expression than wood does, and, above
all is quicker to model. The first stage
was prepared using “cooked” iron, i.e.
left for a certain period in the ashes,
so that it increased it’s pliability, a particular
characteristic that created “movement” in the figures, giving
them the maximum plasticity. the result was then covered with waste hemp
(“tow”) before being dressed; height : 35-40 cm.
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