Via San Gregorio Armeno

A few people here in Italy mentioned to me Presepe Street in Naples. This street is the Christmas nativity makers street, officially called Via San Gregorio Armeno. Naples, I discovered, has had this tradition of creating creche (presepe in Italian) since the time of St. Francis of Assisi.

It has become a tradition of families in Naples to have a presepe and to make it the center of their Christmas celebration, leaving the Christ child to appear on Christmas eve. I understand that some families make their own or add to it each year. Here you can see two examples from a close up shot of the Holy Family and the Wise Men.

The presepe come in many sizes, both simple and amazingly elaborate. First the simple…

And now the elaborate…

The top picture is from a shop in Via San Gregorio Armeno. The second picture is from a museum connected with one of the ancient churches. With Jennifer standing on the left side, you can get some perspective on the size.

The Holy Family from these museum piece are those posted above. Look at the details of some of the other characters in the presepe. Don’t you love the pizza maker? (click on them to see a larger image)

They also make contemporary characters to include in some presepe. I didn’t take many pictures of these, but you can get a flavor from this photo.

There was evidence on the street of how these wonderful creations are made. First, they make the “barns”–though you can see they hardly seem like our simple mangers.

 

Then they begin to add the characters, artifacts, and, in some cases, moving parts. First, the basic parts of the characters. The bodies have terracotta heads and limbs, with the torso made of wire wrapped in string and then covered in silk clothing.

The variety in the clothing…

Of course, these people need props, and so they also are added, and some are even made to move. The pizza man from above is taking pizza out of the oven if you saw it as I did.

Another look at the museum nativity…

An added touch….

While the museum at the church had an example of a very large nativity, it also had some related creations by similar artists. These marvels were walnut shells filled with very small characters from the Old and New Testaments.

The museum had no information about the dating of these walnuts, but they were nearly my favorite. Below, the picture on the left is the ascension of Christ. On the right are Isaiah and Jeremiah.