The most common Christmas decoration in Italy is the presepe or the nativity scene. These often elaborate scenes are found in private homes, in every church, and in piazzas throughout the boot-shaped peninsula.
Some believe that the tradition of creating Nativity scenes originated with St. Francis of Assisi in 1223, when he constructed a nativity scene out of straw in a cave in Greccio in central Italy and used the scene as the site of his Christmas Eve mass.
Carving figurines for Italian nativity scenes started in the 13th century and it’s an art that’s still popular, especially in Naples, where presepe aren’t limited to the usual cast of characters, but include such everyday figures as pizza-makers, watermelon-sellers, fish mongers, blacksmiths, and even Roman soldiers.
We’ll certainly be talking about more of these scenes over the course of the next month (and paying a visit to Rome’s Christmas Fair in Piazza Navona which is full of vendors selling a vast variety of presepe figures), but for today we turn to a newly-released contemporary version of the Italian presepe.
Designed by Giacon Massimo for Alessi (and available for purchase in the new A-shop) the presepe contains five porcelain figures that can be arranged however you like. In a a playful and wintry twist on the traditional story, the birth of Jesus takes place in an igloo (still no room at the inn, we’re guessing).
