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"…Mary gave birth to
her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid
him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the place
where travellers lodged."
According to St Luke the Evangelist (2,7) Jesus was born in a stable
or at least in a place where animals were kept. In fact the word
presepio (Nativity Scene) comes from the Latin verb praesepire (to
enclose, to hedge, to fence) and today it means manger or crib.
The term is thought to have been used for the first time with regard
to St Mary Major's Basilica on the Esquiline Hill in Rome, known
since the 7th century as "Sancta Maria ad praesepe" because
according to tradition it was here the that the relics of the Cradle
of Jesus were brought.
The Low Latin word cripia, meaning manger, was the origin of the
terms creche, crib, krippe, krubba, szopka and wertep meaning Nativity
Scene respectively in French, English, German and Swedish, Polish
and Russian.
An encyclopaedia describes the Presepio as a three dimensional representation
of the birth of Jesus Christ, composed of mobile figures arranged
according to the artistic sense of the builder as well as realistic
elements such as houses, rocks, plants etc, which is prepared for
Christmas and removed by the 2nd February. As such the Presepio
is closely related to the theatre because it intends to render an
event remote in time and space present and real by means of fiction
of a spectacular nature and at the same time, like the theatre,
it cannot be separated from the scenery: in fact without scenery
around the figures representing the holy event, you have a model
of the Nativity but not a Presepio.
With time the tradition of the Presepio evolved in various phases.
It was first found in churches, and this was the ecclesiastical
period. The figures at first painted and then carved, were placed
at side altars and chapels specially reserved for the Presepio,
and during the Christmas Season the Presepio was decorated with
lights and flowers.
Later came the aristocratic period in which the tradition of a Presepio
in the home became popular among the nobility and Nativity Scenes
were ever richer and more pretentious, but also highly artistic.
This tradition gradually extended to all the social classes acquiring
an typically popular character which it retained. |
Fides News
Fides
News 2004