A way with a manger
We went to view the art of the High Renaissance, writes Karen Sparnon, and were seduced by public art.
It was secured to a stone wall which formed one side of the small Venetian piazza. A crude, cardboard sign with the word presepe written in thick, black ink.
We had arrived in Italy that morning, had blown into San Marco airport on a rainy, windswept winter’s day two days before Christmas. This sign was the third we had seen. With limited Italian language we foraged amongst our French, with little result. The pocket Italian dictionary yielded a single word – crib. It all fell into place.
We had done our research, read our books. We had come to the land of art with expectations of Masaccio, Botticelli and Da Vinci. We had come to view those endless depictions of Renaissance religion in the appropriate season. Surely this sign was a courtesy on the part of the locals to direct us to one or other of the great works.
Despite rain and jet lag we followed the arrow and found ourselves outside a large tent, which would prove to be one of the few testaments to a commercial Christmas we would see on our travels. It had been pitched in a piazza and somehow anchored into the cobblestones. Mariah Carey crooned carols into the freezing air and the tent was crammed full of homemade Christmas goodies, an Italian version of the Australian fete. In the centre of the tent, resplendent on a bed of yellow straw was our first local presepe. In English presepe translates as nativity scene or crib, usually featuring Mary, Joseph and Jesus accompanied by an assortment of shepherds and/or kings. Delighted children hovered around and adults stood for a few moments in silent contemplation before moving on.
When we left Italy some weeks later we had come to the conclusion that while the Renaissance might hang in splendour in the galleries, in everyday Italy art in the form of the presepe was no less alive. Our passion for art was to develop into an obsessive pursuit of the presepe.
It was not long before we developed categories for our presepes: the grand, the humble, the mystical, those that had entered the realm of fairytale, the bizarre. There were others that spanned two categories, and heated discussions ensued as to which belonged in what category. In some parts of Italy we discovered competitions for the best presepe, where locals paid entrance fees and milled in town halls to view the months of preparation by local artists.
The streets of Florence bore little evidence of the festive season. The shop displays, always beautiful, carried on with just an occasional discreet dusting of snow around the edges of a window. No tinsel or kitsch baubles clashed with this ochre city, no oversized bows of holly drooped over the streets, and no garish, blow-up Father Christmases teetered wildly on overblown legs. Florence at Christmas is sombre and ethereal. However, what were plentiful were presepes. They nestled in the corners of shop windows and the windows of private residences. They fluctuated between the professional and the amateur depicting endless variations of the divine birth.
In Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence the presepe occupied the centre of the vast public space inside the Duomo. It was a grand presepe! It was roped off and people stopped, knelt and paid their individual respects. These were as many and varied as there were nationalities! Without even trying the presepe had become a work of art! It was something to stop and admire between Michelino’s painting of Dante Explaining the Divine Comedy and Brunelleschi’s Dome!
We visited the church of Santa Croce lured by promises of Brunelleschi’s Pazzi Chapel and Giotto’s touching frescoes. While we stood in awe in the face of greatness I was busy noting the small sign at the entrance to the crypt. This presepe definitely fell into the category of the fairytale. Covering about three square metres it twinkled with tiny lights and even ran to some form of millrace on the outskirts of a vast miniature town. It was not just a presepe; it was an entire vision of life at the time of the birth of Christ. People walked solemnly by and dropped coins in the poor box.
We drove from Florence through Tuscany to the Umbrian hilltown of Todi, arriving in early evening in dense fog. Near midnight we walked the solitary streets towards the Piazza del Popolo in search of coffee. Suddenly there was a break in the continuous run of houses; what appeared to be a little piazza set back from the street. The rear wall had along its length, a raised, walled walkway, which was supported by columns. Carefully placed between two of these small columns were Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. They were etched in black on what looked like a half-moon of white silk, and flanked by two potted pines decorated with red ribbons. In our mist-coated moonlight this little presepe was mystical, translucent.
These hilltowns, built as fortresses with enclosed stone walls, usually feature a main street leading from a town gate to a central piazza. Moving from Todi to Orvieto to Siena, with others in between, we discovered that the Hilltown’s homage to Christmas extended to simple strings of dancing lights (small and discreet of course!) decorating the length of this main street, and a sign wishing one Buon Natale or Buon Feste. All was taste and discretion.
Outside the Basilica di San Francesco in Assisi we were treated to our most spectacular presepe yet. Rivaling Giotto’s frescoes in the church was a huge field of life-size figures acting out their own particular nativity. It was lunchtime and tourists from the world over stood around munching, drinking and staring. Cameras flashed with unnerving regularity. We decided that this one was on a grand scale but was still simple, still humble. It was a long time before we moved onwards.
The shopkeepers in Assisi run a competition for the best presepe. Our favourite was made from aluminium drink cans with painted faces. Definitely bizarre! Others were more traditional and even the blue and white Assisi embroidery had been bought in to form a backdrop. That it had been a stiff competition was obvious by the huge number of presepes, and the few place-getting rosettes. Incidentally, the aluminium cans did not win a prize.
In Sicily Christmas seemed even less in evidence. In the little coastal town halfway between Messina and Palermo, where the mountains reached to the edge of the sea, a wooden lean-to had been erected in the main street just outside the major bank. Inside this presepe were huge, silver, paper mountains and the whole effect teetered somewhere between outback Australia and Switzerland. The elderly men in the town used this area as a meeting place. In rows of two or three they sat on the benches and watched the passers-by, one occasionally moving to adjust something on their particular presepe. Parents pointed details out to their children, and devotees occasionally made the sign of the cross and/or genuflected and touched their hats. This one we slotted somewhere between the fairytale and the humble. It was a touching reflection of faith and we gave it due respect.
It became an obsession. We found ourselves entering magnificent churches with mosaics that left us spellbound, paintings and frescoes of unparalleled beauty, and views from windows that briefly took away the breath. In each one there was a presepe. It was sometimes a centrepiece and other times it occupied a discreet corner. It was always beautiful and very rarely simply the Holy Family plus shepherds and/or kings. There were backdrops to rival the best theatre company, and leaps of the imagination that sometimes ran counter to what would have been possible in that little town of Bethlehem. Italy is full of contradictions. We had come to view the art of the High Renaissance and had been seduced by public art. Urbane, artistic Italy simply overflowed with presepes.
In Amalfi, that little town perched on the side of the Amalfi Coast, the town hall was filled with a plethora of presepes. We entered and found ourselves amidst serious art! Lining the walls were detailed and painstaking representations of the nativity. The whole town was involved in a competition, divided into categories, for the best presepe. We paid, entered – gasped – and took photos. In one presepe the entire town was at work: blacksmiths, farmers, woman doing household duties. They were scattered amongst what appeared to be the rocky sides of a mountain. Yes, there was no doubting that this artist had depicted what he knew. Amalfi gives the impression of clinging to the edge. Life lived in layers on the side of the world. There was no wondering as to the source of this artist’s inspiration! Children had done wonderful things with coloured paper and foil. The people loved it! They exclaimed over the prize certificates and as we left we were given a postcard with, you guessed it, a picture of a presepe.
In the Vatican the vast spaces of the Piazza San Pietro were filled with a traditional presepe. There was nothing fanciful about this one and it spoke volumes in its unadorned simplicity. Was it simple or was it grand? It was one of the few containing only the Holy Family. It stood, holding its own and not at all self-conscious, en route to the Basilica of Saint Peter with its drawcards including Michelangelo’s Pietà and Bernini’s Monument to Pope Alexander VII.
In Italy Christmas is conspicuous by its absence. Father Christmas is not often seen and tinsel and glitter, if they were used, would seem incongruous and kitsch. Our inquiries led us to the discovery that Easter was the really big celebration, that the processions depicting the time up to the crucifixion and resurrection were stupendous. Italy was obviously into performance art on the really big issues… Perhaps we should return at Easter and allow ourselves to be seduced all over again!
Published in The Age, Saturday 25 December, 1999