Even though most of us are back at work and it feels like life as usual, today is only the tenth day of Christmas, which continues for twelve days from 25 December, ending on the 6th of January, Epiphany, when the Magi arrived at the stable to shower the Baby Jesus with gifts. Here in Italy presepi, nativity scenes, are still on display. As I went to see them in tiny villages and small towns, I thought of the community spirit and individual skills needed to produce these complicated constructions.
Presepe on an island, Bagni di Lucca
The Media Valle del Serchio (just north of Lucca and including Bagni di Lucca) is renowned for its gesso (plaster of Paris) figurines, many of which were cast to be used in presepi. Presepi come in all shapes and sizes. Many are in churches or church halls and show the artist’s conception of every day life in Bethlehem, like this one in the church at Pieve Fosciana in the Garfagnana.
Doing the laundry
Chopping firewood
A very small loaf...
...but very large pots
I think there's something wrong with this knitting pattern
Fish for dinner
The Romans in their luxurious palace keeping tabs on the people below
The series of presepi at Pescaglia are the most fun to visit. From the main piazza you see huge shooting stars glowing in a wide semi-circle around the village, which turn out to be your guides to at least 30 imaginative presepi along the lanes and on the hillsides of the village.
A star to guide us
At first, I was enjoying the treasure hunt too much to take photos and missed the one in the chimney pot, but here are some others.
A cosy stall with chickens pecking at the door
A week or two before the birth
Above the pregnant Mary, an eerie moonlit snowy scene
And angel points the way
School children have created a presepe from dried corn husks
The three kings follow the star with a camel with one too many humps.
Joseph looks worried
A concert
A water mill
The Magi have arrived
Sometimes a whole village is turned into a presepe vivente, a living presepe, where attic’s are ransacked for pre-war clothing, children write on slates in candlelit schoolrooms, woman sit on rush chairs doing their tatting, wine is mulled over a fire in the street and at midnight real parents bring their infant, usually dressed in Baby Gap jeans, to the manger at the base of the fort at the top of the village.
The most inventive presepi are the miniature ones in the church hall at Pieve Fosciana. Several have moving parts, most include music and one of the Annunciation shows the angel Gabriel magically appearing and disappearing, which I totally failed to capture in a photo.
A miniature nativity scene
This one resembles Cinderella and the wicked stepmother
A stall with rather grand columns
Here's one in a tree trunk
And one in a light bulb
The prize for the kitschiest must be this one in a piazza in Lucca.
If you’re hungry for more photos of presepi, I recommend Debra Kolkka’s photos of the famous ones in Naples.
Wonderful nativity scenes! I specially like the one in the light bulb! Hugs, Rose
That one reminds me of ships in bottles.
These things are fascinating, even the ones that are not very good. I love them!
Me too. The sense of community is strong.