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The Neapolitan Presepio
In Naples around the mid 16th century, medieval symbols were put
aside and the modern Presepio was born. According to tradition merit
goes to Saint Gaetano from Thiene who was enraptured by the mystery
of Christmas and built a large Presepio with wooden figures dressed
in the clothes of the times for Christmas 1534 at the Santa Maria
della Stalletta oratory beside the hospital for the incurable.
After this numerous Presepio were built in churches and convents
all over Naples, but it was not until the next century that the
Presepio with mobile figures appeared. The first example was produced
by the Scolopi Fathers for Christmas 1627. Also worthy of mention
a Presepio in Santa Maria in Portico, commissioned by Duchess Orsini,
and a Presepio built by the Bottega del Ceraso for the church of
St Gregory Armeno. However, the golden age of the art of the Presepio
in Naples was the 18th century. With Charles III in fact the city,
once again the capital of an independent region, was renovated and
took its place among the famous cities of Europe, experiencing a
flourish of culture and art, of which the Presepio was to be one
of the most splendid expressions.
It was truly a fever of the Presepio which took over the whole city
of Naples in 1700, even the King. Charles III, who had a passion
for mechanics and clever hands, encouraged and personally directed
court architects and scenery producers as well as building himself
a Presepio in the royal apartments. Queen Maria Amelia and her ladies
in waiting made the clothes for the figures with material and minute
patterns especially produced in the royal fabric factory at St.
Leucio. Nobles and rich bourgeois families, anxious to keep up with
the King, competed with their own Presepio. The most beautiful Presepio
were rewarded with a visit by the King, a much sought after recognition.
The citizens were allowed into noble homes to admire the costly
productions .
In the typical 18th century Neapolitan Presepio, the Nativity Scene
stands on a rock and is set inside the ruins of a church; the whole
scene is inevitably overshadowed by the outline of the Vesuvius
volcano. Other distinctive elements are a Saracen tower, a busy
market, a tavern where Mary and Joseph were refused a room, but
above all the Neapolitan people who crowd the scene of the Nativity,
almost suffocating it with a profusion of colours and scenes, poverty
and nobility, comic figures and drama, animals, local and exotic,
a procession of lame, deformed and blind contrasting the rich entourage
of slaves and rich gifts following the Three Magi. This varied humanity
triumphs over the Gospel story, the Nativity withdraws to the background,
what counts is the spectacle, farce, drama portrayed all around
it.
The typical shepherd in the Neapolitan is made of straw and wire,
with wooden limbs, head in polychrome terracotta and eyes in crystal.
Animals, big and small, are all in wood.
A fundamental, if not dominant component of the 18th century Presepio
in Naples, is the market with all manner of wares, an explosion
of shapes and colours. Together with the Hosteria, another characteristic
element, there is always the market with its fruit and vegetables,
hams, fish, shellfish, salamis and sausages, cheeses, olives, the
butcher's shop with beef and pork, rabbit and game, pizza, maceroni,
eggs etc. In a town as poor as Naples at that time, afflicted by
insatiable hunger, this gastronomic profusion, an orgy of food,
submerges the Nativity Scene and distorts it, acquiring the significance
of the revenge of the people over its age old enemy hunger, the
revenge of an hallucinating imaginary dream-world where hunger is
no more and food is abundant for all. Almost a sort of transfer:
as if once a year at Christmas time in front of the Presepio, the
ragged people of Naples are completely satisfied.
Examples of 18th century Neapolitan Presepio still extant today
thanks to generous donations, are found in Museums in Italy and
elsewhere. The most famous and one of the largest is the Cuciniello
Presepio donated to the city of Naples by author Michele Cuciniello
who died in 1899. The Presepio is kept at the Museo della Certosa
di San Martino, on the Vomero hill; a rival for beauty and richness
of personages, is the Presepio at the Royal Palace of Caserta. Not
to be forgotten the Presepio in the Museum of Avellino, another
in the church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in Rome, as well as Presepio
collections at the Nationalmuseum in Munich and the Metropolitan
Museum in New York, and among private collections those of the Leonetti
Counts and the Catello family. .
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Fides
News 2004
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