Nativity Scene

NATIVITY SCENE. - St. Jerome writes in 404 to Eustochium that Paula, entering Bethlehem into the "Specum Salvatoris," saw the "stabulum" where He was born (Ep. 108, 10: PL 22, 384).

The idea that the manger consisted of a box of beaten earth mixed with straw, such as are found in present-day Arab houses, cannot be admitted, because in the first place such boxes are not used for this purpose, and secondly because it is not clear how it would have been preserved during the religious syncretism practiced in the Grotto (from 135 to 226), whereas it is attested by Origen and seen in the Christian period. It is a matter of the manger carved into the rock, substantially surviving to our own day, already covered with silver plates (from 326 to 614) and later with metal sheets with holes that allowed the sacred rock to be touched. The interpretation of the 1934 soundings (v. BETLEMME) led to the belief in an oculus above the Grotto, so that it could be seen from the Basilica, but this element, besides being unknown in the literary tradition, has no support from the monument, because among other reasons it would be larger than the Grotto itself. The platform was nothing other than the base of the ciborium. New soundings and excavations (1948-49) have clearly shown the access to the Grotto at the end of the central nave and arrangements different from those believed in the atrium of the Constantinian Basilica, which does not appear to have had an octagon above the Grotto but only a polygonal apse.

Bellarmino Bagatti

I. ARCHEOLOGIA.
- In alcune scene
della natività del
Salvatore, nell'arte
cristiana antica, si
sono tenuti presenti
i passi di Is. 1, 3,
«cognovit bos pos-
sessorem suum et asi-
nus praesepe domini
sui»; di Hob. 3, 2
«in medio duorum
animalium» e lo
pseudo-evangelo di
Matteo (cap. 14). I
due animali sono
messi in evidenza
anche da s. Ambrogio
(In Lucam, 2, 7: PL
15, 2649) e da Pruden-
zio (Cathemerimon,
XI, 78: PL 59, 896).
In un affresco andato
distrutto nel cimitero
«in catacumbas», ri-
prodotto da G. B.

De Rossi (Bull. d'arch. crist., 1877, p. 141 e tav. 2), il
Bambino è tra i due animali. In un gruppo di sarcofagi
cristiani si vede il Bambino in una cesta di vimini sotto
una tettoia e dietro il bue e l'asino; talvolta ai lati da una
parte è la Madonna, dall'altra un pastore (Wilpert,
Sarcofagi, pp. 263, 283-85, tav. 198, 1; 201, 5; 226, 1;
249, 11). Il Marini vide e copio un raro frammento di
coperchio di sarcofago con la data consolare del 343 (G.
B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae, I, Roma 1857,
p. 51) con la scena della Natività più antica che si conosca.
Nei sarcofagi di Mantova (Wilpert, op. cit., tav. 30) e
di S. Ambrogio a Milano (id., op. cit., tav. 189, 2) la
scena tra i due animali è rappresentata in uno degli acro-
teri. Un avorio conservato a Nevers rappresenta a si-
nistra il Bambino con i due animali, a destra l'Epifania
(F. X. Barbier de Montault, *Ivoire latin du Musée de
Nevers, in Bulletin monumental*, 50 [1884], p. 711). La
scena del Bambino sulla mangiatoia tra il bue e l'asino
con la Madonna e s. Giuseppe è rappresentata in una
stoffa di seta rinvenuta nel tesoro del Sancta Sanctorum
(H. Grisar, Il tesoro del Sancta Sanctorum, Roma 1907,
p. 181; riprodotto da Ph. Lauer, *Le trésor du Sancta
Sanctorum, in Monuments Piot*, 15 [1906], pp. 110-11,
tav. 18, 5).

La basilica di S. Maria Maggiore, che fino dal sec. VI
viene detta «S. Maria ad praesepe» o «ad praesepe»,
era un oratorio riproducente la grotta di Betlemme. In-
fatti nella biografia di Gregorio III (731-41) è denominato
«oratorium» (Lib. pont., I, p. 418) e fu abbellito da
Adriano I, da Leone III e da Sergio II. H. Grisar ri-
tenne che tale oratorio fu fatto costruire dal papa Sisto III
dietro l'altare maggiore. La cappella venne rifatta sotto
Nicolo IV da Arnolfo di Cambio, e forse già allora ri-
mossa; Sisto V la fece trasportare da D. Fontana sotto
la cappella del S.mo Sacramento. L'oratorio di Gio-
vanni VII (705-707) nella Basilica Vaticana («Oratorium
Sanctae Mariae» e anche «praesepe Sanctae Mariae»)
era splendente di marmi e di musaici (Lib. pont., I,
p. 385; G. B. De Rossi, Musaici, Roma 1890, fasc. 23). Anche
in appendice alla Notitia Ecclesiarum, nella descrizione del-
l'interno della Basilica Vaticana è ricordato l'oratorio «ad
praesepe Sanctae Mariae» (R. Valentini e G. Zucchetti,
Codice topografico della città di Roma, II, Roma 1942,
p. 98). Il p. eretto dal papa Gregorio IV (827-44) nella
basilica di S. Maria in Trastevere, decorato di lastre
d'oro e d'argento, era «ad similitudinem praesepii sanctae
Dei Genitricis quae appellatur maioris» (Lib. pont., II,
p. 78).

Quanto alla discussa autenticità delle reliquie della
culla, v. G. Cozza, Luzzi e P. Lais, *Le memorie Liberiane
dell'infanzia di N. S. Gesù Cristo* (Roma 1894) e H. Grisar,

La culla del divin Bambino e S. Maria Maggiore di Roma,
in Civ. Catt., 15ª serie, 1894, pp. 209-11.

Mélanges d'archéol. et d'hist., 4 (1884), pp. 334-44; H. Grisar,
Archeol. del p. in Roma (sec. V-XVI), in Civ. Catt., 1908, IV,
pp. 702-19; H. Leclercq, Ane, in DACL, I, coll. 2047-59; *Bœuf.
ibid., II, coll. 966-71; Crèche*, III, II, coll. 3022-29.

Enrico Josi

II. ART

The presentation of the presepio, extremely frequent throughout all medieval art (v. EPIPHANY) and to which must also be linked the one that St. Francis set up on Christmas night in 1223, when in a grotto the image of the Child was placed beside an ox and a donkey, was developed with ever greater intensity and naturalistic accents not only in the sculpture and painting of the fourteenth century (Duccio di Buoninsegna, Simone Martini, Giotto, Giovanni Pisano, Lorenzo Maitani and the Lorenzetti) but in those of the Renaissance. And in that flourishing season of Italian art the deeply human theme of the presepio is grasped and developed with diverse and spontaneous accents, while the ancient laws of traditional iconography bend and at times are renewed so that the most affectionate and secret feelings may be expressed. Lorenzo Monaco takes it up again, developing it in the sinuous elegances of Gothic fashion; the Angelico, who in the convent of S. Marco sees the deeply human scene with eyes still dazzled by visions of Paradise; Masaccio, who in the small panel of the Federico Museum in Berlin places the Virgin on the threshold of a little hut against the background of bare hills; Gentile da Fabriano, who 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 S. Petronio in Bologna; thus Luca della Robbia in some admirable terracottas; thus 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. And beside them still Benozzo Gozzoli in the chapel of the Palazzo dei Medici in Florence, who takes the scene as a pretext to describe in a most imposing procession the splendor of the Medicean court.

Noteworthy also among the fifteenth-century representations of the presepio are those of the cathedral of Volterra by a Robbiano sculptor, of the silver antependium by Nicola di Guardiagrele in the cathedral of Teramo, and the other modeled in 1484 in S. Giovanni a Carbonara in Naples. But it is always the painters who carry forward the developments of the theme. From Piero della Francesca in the presepio of the National Gallery in London, to Filippo and Filippino Lippi, to Botticelli, to Lorenzo di Credi, to Leonardo himself in the Adoration of the Uffizi and in the Virgin of the Rocks. On the other hand, by now past the threshold of the sixteenth century, it is Raphael himself and then Correggio who add new elements or accents to the theme, and so too the great Venetian artists from Giambellino to Lorenzo Lotto, to Palma il Vecchio and the Bassano.

In the field of Renaissance sculpture, especially that of a more popular tone, the theme of the presepio is developed predominantly in northern Italy; in Lombardy and Emilia above all. To be cited in this regard are the works of Guido Mazzoni and of Antonio Begarelli in the cathedral of Modena, and that of Federico Brandani in the cathedral of Urbino. These great terracotta presepi, like the procession of the Magi that arrives at the hut of Bethlehem in a chapel of the S. Monte di Varallo, like also the high relief left unfinished by Pier Paolo Olivieri in 1599 in S. Pudentiana in Rome, denote a new tendency of plastic verism that will carry its weight when, through the experiences of seventeenth-century naturalism and realism, the taste for a certain genre of representations went on the one hand refining itself, to the point of generating the admirable Nativities that were painted by Tiepolo, by Piazzetta, by Pompeo Batoni and by de Mura, and on the other those eighteenth-century plastic representations that found their maximum expression in Naples. But in Naples itself the plastic representation of the presepio had very ancient origins. It went back to the times when Queen Sancia had had one prepared for the monastery of S. Chiara founded by her, certainly in memory of that of Greccio where the Seraphic one had prayed.

Emilio Lavagnino

III. FOLKLORE

Among all the sacred representations of the Christian world, that of the Nativity or p. enjoyed the greatest fortune in popular taste. This depends on the fact that, instinctively, the people have always regarded the scene of the p. as an idealization and almost a projection onto the religious plane of the family itself, the essential center of human affections. But it is difficult to say when the p. spread from the Church and the religious confraternities to the private house.

Sculptural p. developed with great success during the 14th century and especially in the following centuries, with an ever greater increase in figures: the moment when the p. became properly "popular" remains uncertain, however: it is perhaps more accurate to say that, from the 14th century onward, the p. could equally interest high art and folklore. By the middle of the 15th century, through the work of terracotta sculptors (the Della Robbia first of all), there was already an example of mixed composition, of sculpture and painting, in which the landscape and the minor figures were executed on the background of the niche in which the sculptures were housed (cathedral of Volterra: a Della Robbia p. with a background by B. Gozzoli). If Tuscany was a great and industrious center of the p. in the Renaissance, northern Italy too participated in the naturalism of this representation, which found, in the north, and especially in Germany, important interpretations by wood craftsmen.

The p. enjoyed great success in wood and terracotta sculpture in Naples, where the p. of S. Giovanni a Carbonara (1484) marks the beginning of a highly successful local tradition. In this p. the presence of the Prophets and the Sibyls indicates the traces of the sacred representations in the Nativity.

Still in the Renaissance, Tuscany, Umbria, Abruzzo, and Campania developed the art of the p. before other regions. For Abruzzo it is enough to recall the very beautiful p. of Leonessa (late 15th century) with terracotta figures.

In the Baroque taste the sculpture of the p. was enriched with picturesque episodes, even before reaching the characteristic complexity of the 18th-century Neapolitan p. The technique of the p. became, in the pursuit of an ever greater naturalism, varied and complicated. With the 18th century, alongside the rough figures modeled or stamped in terracotta or plaster, and painted, there appeared the most refined forms of figurines dressed in cloth (sometimes sized and colored) with the face and extremities modeled and painted or carved in wood (especially the hands and feet), almost always with glass eyes: while the body was, like that of mannequins, of soft iron wire, covered with tow.

The exceptional development of the Neapolitan p. and the consequent creation of a specialized craft, from the stage set (of wood, cork, papier-mâché, painted canvas) to the clothes, to the tiny jewelry, to the modeling of, besides the figures, the animals and the infinitely varied objects housed in the numerous picturesque corners of the scene, is due in large part to Charles III of Bourbon, himself passionate about the art of the p. Among the people, encouraged by the example of the sovereign in his age-old tendency toward the picturesque, the Dominican father Rocco, himself the author of celebrated p., also helped to spread the habit of making p.

The best Neapolitan p. of the 18th century are found in Naples, in the Museum of S. Martino, in some churches and in many private collections, in Rome in the church of SS. Cosma and Damiano and in the basilica of S. Marco (coming from donations), in Italian and foreign museums of folklore and applied art, as in the ethnographic museum formerly at Villa d'Este in Tivoli and, above all, in Germany in Berlin and Munich, where one of the most complete collections exists. The artists who worked in Naples are very numerous and almost all of great ability: one can, indeed, say that Neapolitan sculpture of the 18th century found in this art its happiest expression. Criticism has dealt extensively with some of them, such as Sammartino, Angelo and Giacomo Viva, Giuseppe Gori, Lorenzo Mosca, Giuseppe De Luca, Francesco and Camillo Celebrano: specialists in animal sculpture and in still lifes were Lorenzo Mosca, Giuseppe De Luca, Saverio Vassallo and Giuseppe Sarno. With the 19th century the art of the Neapolitan p. declined, as it also gradually died out in Sicily, where Giovanni Matera and Giacomo Bongiovanni had worked with genius. Nevertheless the popular habit of preparing the p. for Christmas remains very widespread. In Rome, in that period, the sale of "puppets" for the p. in the stalls of Piazza Navona is characteristic. - See plates CXXXIV-CXXXV.

Valerio Mariani