PRESENCE OF GOD. — The respectful awareness of God’s presence, or the “elevation of the soul,” constitutes the fundamental and indispensable act in all true prayer, even in vocal prayer (Ps. 140:2; St. Teresa, *Mansions*, I, 1, 7; St. Augustine, *Enarr. in Ps.*, 85, no. 7; St. Ignatius, *Spir. Ex.*, no. 75). By the presence of God, the devout soul understands the gaze of the Divinity, attentive and intelligent (Ps. 5:2-3), helpful and merciful (ibid., 9:14), purifying and life-giving (1 Jn. 3:19-20), the affection with which God enfolds His beloved creature within Himself, “embracing it in His love” (Is. 66:12-13; St. Ignatius, *Spir. Ex.*, no. 15), in a word, Grace, considered as a personal communication from God (Is. 58:9). The soul dedicated to prayer seeks to render God’s presence with its own presence, grace with grace (Ps. 118:148), to sketch the face-to-face encounter of eternal communion (2 Cor. 5:1-9).
The exercise of God’s presence is necessary for prayer, and for this reason the “house of prayer” is also the temple of God, that is, the place where one finds oneself *apud Dominum*, welcomed by the Lord (Ps. 83:2-5). In the economy of grace, true worshipers worship the Father in spirit and truth: the edification of the Temple becomes a spiritual exercise, man, the living temple of God (2 Cor. 6:16), and God Himself, the temple of His elect (Rev. 21:22-27). The constant memory of God’s presence, being—as is evident—a living exercise of hope, is found in various ways at the beginning of every kind of spiritual perfection (Gen. 17:1), whether in sincere horror, sorrow, and separation from sin (Is. 1:15-16), or in the steady progress of virtue (Jn. 15:4-5), or in the unitive conformity and unshakable peace that crowns it (Lk. 1:46-49). This universal search for God is often sustained by a corresponding supernatural sentiment (Ps. 138:7-12). The prayer known as “of simple presence” unfolds when the soul, though fervent, can no longer meditate, nor even pause calmly in a “loving awareness or general and indistinct attention to God.” This manner of prayer usually marks the entry into contemplation in the strict sense (St. John of the Cross, *Ascent*, bk. 2, ch. 14). In the contemplative soul, the intimate aspect of presence takes on prominence (St. Bernard, *De consideratione*, bk. 5, nos. 11-12); and in the state of union, the intimate affective presence manifests itself as a habitual substantial contact, or spiritual compenetration (1 Cor. 6:17), a living hearth of loving sentiments toward God, governed by the eternal fulfillment of that “sweet in-
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*Presepe* — The Grotta della Natività with, to the right, the opening of the manger.
*Presepe* — Detail of a 4th-century sarcophagus — Lateran Museum.
De Rossi (*Bull. d'arch. crist.*, 1877, p. 141 and pl. 2) notes that the Child is between the two animals. In a group of Christian sarcophagi, the Child is seen in a wicker basket beneath a roof, with the ox and the ass behind; sometimes, on either side, the Virgin Mary is depicted on one side and a shepherd on the other (Wilpert, *Sarcofagi*, pp. 263, 283-85, pls. 198, 1; 201, 5; 226, 1; 249, 11). Marini copied a rare fragment of a sarcophagus lid bearing the consular date of 343 (G. B. De Rossi, *Inscriptiones christianae*, I, Rome 1857, p. 51), with the oldest known scene of the Nativity. In the sarcophagi of Mantua (Wilpert, *op. cit.*, pl. 30) and of St. Ambrose in Milan (id., *op. cit.*, pl. 189, a), the scene between the two animals is represented in one of the acroteria. An ivory preserved in Nevers depicts, on the left, the Child with the two animals and, on the right, the Epiphany (F. X. Barbier de Montault, *Histoire latine du Musée de Nevers*, in *Bulletin monumental*, 50 [1884], p. 711). The scene of the Child in the manger between the ox and the ass, with the Virgin Mary and St. Joseph, is represented on a silk cloth found in the treasure of the Sancta Sanctorum (H. Grisar, *Il tesoro del Sancta Sanctorum*, Rome 1907, p. 181; reproduced by Ph. Lauer, *Le trésor du Sancta Sanctorum*, in *Monuments Piot*, 15 [1906], pp. 110-11, pl. 18, 5).
The basilica of St. Mary Major, which since the 6th century has been called “St. Mary *ad praesepem*” or “at the manger,” was an oratory reproducing the grotto of Bethlehem. Indeed, in the biography of Gregory III (731-41), it is referred to as an “oratory” (*Lib. pont.*, I, p. 418) and was embellished by Adrian I, Leo III, and Sergius II. H. Grisar held that this oratory was built by Pope Sixtus III behind the high altar. The chapel was rebuilt under Nicholas IV by Arnolfo di Cambio, and perhaps already moved at that time; Sixtus V had it transferred by D. Fontana to beneath the chapel of the Most Holy Sacrament. The oratory of John VII (705-707) in the Vatican Basilica (“Oratory of St. Mary” and also “Manger of St. Mary”) was resplendent with marbles and mosaics (*Lib. pont.*, I, p. 385; G. B. De Rossi, *Musaici*, Rome 1890, fasc. 23). Also appended to the *Notitia Ecclesiarum*, in the description of the interior of the Vatican Basilica, the oratory “ad praesepe Sanctae Mariae” is recalled (R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti, *Codice topografico della città di Roma*, II, Rome 1942, p. 98). The oratory erected by Pope Gregory IV (827-44) in the basilica of St. Mary in Trastevere, adorned with gold and silver plaques, was “in the likeness of the manger of the Holy Mother of God, which is called the Greater” (*Lib. pont.*, II, p. 78).
As for the debated authenticity of the relics of the crib, *v.* G. Cozza, Luzzi, and P. Lais, *Le memorie Liberiane dell'infanzia di N. S. Gesù Cristo* (Rome 1894) and H. Grisar, *La culla del divino Bambino e S. Maria Maggiore di Roma*, in *Civ. Catt.*, 15th ser., 1894, pp. 209-11.
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II. Art
The representation of the *presepe* (*manger scene*), extremely frequent throughout medieval art (*v.* Epiphany) and connected with the one St. Francis instituted on Christmas night in 1223—when in a grotto the image of the Child was placed beside an ox and an ass—was developed with ever greater intensity and naturalistic accents not only in the sculpture and painting of the Trecento (Duccio di Buoninsegna, Simone Martini, Giotto, Giovanni Pisano, Lorenzo Maitani, and the Lorenzetti) but also in those of the Renaissance. In that flourishing season of Italian art, the most human theme of the *presepe* was seized upon and developed with varied and spontaneous accents, while the ancient laws of traditional iconography bent and sometimes renewed themselves so that the most affectionate and intimate sentiments could be expressed. Lorenzo Monaco took it up again, developing it in the flowing elegance of Gothic fashion; Fra Angelico, in the convent of San Marco, viewed the most human scene with eyes still dazzled by visions of Paradise; Masaccio, in the panel now in the Museo Federico di Berlino, places the Virgin on the threshold of a humble hut against a backdrop of barren hills; Gentile da Fabriano, in the Strozzi altarpiece (Uffizi), imagines the scene as a celebration of the power of the Medici. Thus Donatello, with Jacopo della Quercia in the relief of the portal of San Petronio in Bologna; Luca della Robbia in some admirable terracottas; and later Antonio Rossellino, who narrates the birth of Jesus joyfully in the high relief of the Piccolomini chapel in the church of Monteoliveto in Naples. Beside them stands Benozzo Gozzoli in the chapel of the Palazzo Medici in Florence, who takes the scene as a pretext to depict, in an imposing fresco, the splendor of the Medici court.
Notable among the 15th-century representations of the Nativity are those in Volterra Cathedral by a della Robbia sculptor, the silver antependium by Nicola di Guardiagrele in Teramo Cathedral, and another modelled in 1484 in S. Giovanni a Carbonara in Naples. Yet it is always the painters who advance the development of the theme. From Piero della Francesca in the Nativity in the National Gallery, London, to Filippo and Filippino Lippi, Botticelli, Lorenzo di Credi, and Leonardo himself in the Uffizi Adoration and the Virgin of the Rocks. Once the thresholds of the 16th century have been crossed, it is Raphael himself and then Correggio who add new elements or accents to the theme, and likewise the great Venetian artists from Giovanni Bellini to Lorenzo Lotto, Palma il Vecchio and the Bassano.
In the field of Renaissance sculpture, especially that with a more popular tone, the Nativity theme is developed predominantly in northern Italy, above all in Lombardy and Emilia. Worthy of mention in this connection are the works of Guido Mazzoni and Antonio Begarelli in Modena Cathedral and that of Federico Brandani in Urbino Cathedral. These large terracotta Nativities, such as the procession of the Magi arriving at the Bethlehem stable in a chapel of the Sacro Monte at Varallo, and the high relief left unfinished by Pier Paolo Olivieri in 1599 in S. Pudenziana in Rome, show a new trend in plastic realism that would carry weight when, through the experiences of 17th-century naturalism and realism, taste for a certain kind of representation was refined on the one hand to produce the marvellous Nativity paintings by Tiepolo, Piazzetta, Pompeo Batoni and de Mura, and on the other those 18th-century plastic representations that found their highest expression in Naples. Yet in Naples itself the plastic representation of the Nativity had very ancient origins. It went back to the time when Queen Sancia had one made for the monastery of S. Chiara which she had founded, doubtless in memory of that at Greccio where the Seraphic Father had prayed.
III. FOLKLORE
Of all the sacred representations in the Christian world, that of the Nativity or *presepe* enjoyed the greatest popularity in folk taste. This is because instinctively the people have always regarded the scene of the Nativity as an idealisation and almost a projection on the religious plane of the family itself, the essential centre of human affections. Yet it is difficult to say when the *presepe* spread from the Church and religious confraternities to the private home.Plastic Nativities flourished greatly during the 14th century and especially in the following centuries, with a steadily increasing number of figures; yet the moment when the *presepe* became properly “popular” remains uncertain. It may be more accurate to say that from the 14th century onwards the *presepe* could equally engage both high art and folklore. By the mid-15th century, through the work of terracotta modellers (the della Robbia among the first), there already existed a sample of mixed composition, combining sculpture and painting, in which the landscape and minor figures were executed on the background of the niche housing the sculptures (Volterra Cathedral: della Robbia Nativity with background by Benozzo Gozzoli). If Tuscany was a great and active centre of the Nativity in the Renaissance, northern Italy too shared in the naturalism of this representation, which in the north—and above all in Germany—found important interpretations at the hands of woodcarvers.
The Nativity enjoyed great success in wood and terracotta sculpture at Naples, where the Nativity in S. Giovanni in Carbonara (1484) marks the beginning of a most fortunate local tradition. In this Nativity the presence of Prophets and Sibyls shows traces of sacred drama in the Nativity scene.
