Angels, shepherds, the Wise Men all came to Bethlehem to adore the newborn king, if the Nativity stories of Matthew and Luke are taken together.
But if your imagination can soar with the Christmas creche makers down through the ages, so too did the hangman, the ice cream vendor, an organ grinder, the town drunk, a fishmonger with a tank full of eels, and a bizarre bestiary of elephants, monkeys, lions, exotic birds in silver filigree cages--even a unicorn.
Choirs of dimpled seraphim and cherubim in these exquisite miniature Nativity scenes are accompanied by drummers, fifers, bagpipers, harpists, fiddlers (anticipating the invention of the violin by a millennium and a half) and race track-sized trumpets worthy of calling the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to eternity's starting gate.
In Rome's Church of San Marco, the presepio, or Christmas crib, has hidden pumps and levers to activate fountains, streams and waterfalls and to send down a blizzard of snow on the cave where the holy family huddles.
In Naples, where in every church and thousands of homes tiny Bethlehems arise in baroque splendor between Dec. 6, the feast of St. Nicholas, and Jan. 6, the coming of the Magi, some of the puppet pilgrims accent the timeless message of the Christ child by arriving at the stable by stagecoach, aboard toy electric trains or down the mountain by cable car.
In others, the gadgetry animates a roistering tavern scene of raised goblets and swaying patrons, for remember, the inn was crowded that night. In the background a perspiring baker in chef's hat shovels a pizza into an oven glowing with live embers.
But in religious folk art, especially at this forgiving time of the year, there is only the sublime, never the ridiculous.
The 200 pastori mobili , movable creche figures, that adorn the fabulous Angel Tree at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, a masterpiece of 18th-Century Neapolitan art, include an elegant lady in a lace shawl and gold-brocaded gown slouching toward Bethlehem in a gilt and jeweled throne on the back of an elephant. Could this be a Wise Lady?
From the time Nativity scenes began to appear on sarcophagi early in the 4th Century, the imagination of the artist was never confined to the simple stories told by the evangelists Matthew and Luke.
Certainly there was nothing fundamentalist about the interpretation of the biblical texts by the sculptors, painters, architects, costumers, goldsmiths and silversmiths, stage set designers and craftsmen called "animaliers"--specialists in creating tiny lambs, oxen and other stable animals--who produced the now priceless creches on display in museums around the world. The Museo Nazionale di San Martino in Naples and Munich's Bayerisches National Museum have world-famous collections.
The 18th-Century Neapolitan presepio , in particular, with its surging crowd scenes that often include an outdoor food market, a public hanging or a band concert in the square at Bethlehem, along with the Roman census taker in polished silver helmet and gold-trimmed toga, owes more to the city's San Carlo opera than to Gospel story.
More lavish than any department store Christmas window, the stage set teems with Neapolitan brio: sad-eyed, hollow-cheeked beggars, the innkeeper serving up a big bowl of pasta, peasants pushing carts full of melons and to demonstrate the artistry of the sculptors, travelers from many lands--Turks, Moors, Slavs, Chinese, Africans.
Here in magnificent miniature is the opposite end of sculpture's scale from Borglum's Mt. Rushmore. The whole theatrical presentation required the coordinating skills of a specialist like Lorenzo Mosca, who had the title of "royal Christmas crib director. "
Don Carlos of Bourbon, who became King of Naples in 1734, had a royal creche that numbered 5,950 figures.
His successor, Ferdinand IV, was himself an artist at creating the rococo mannequins. Queen Maria Carolina and her ladies in waiting assisted by sewing the tiny garments from the most expensive silks, velvets and brocades and helped deck the houses of Bethlehem with garlands of sausages, salamis, pepperonis, strings of onions and garlic and gourds of cheese, all done in faultless detail.
In 1567, the Duchess of Amalfi's inventory listed two great wooden chests filled with 116 crib figures, including the Virgin Mary with a unicorn. Neapolitan noblemen and merchants held open house during the holidays to show off creches that sometimes occupied several floors of a house. Important artists spent months, sometimes years, sculpting the 12- to 15-inch high figures with marvelously expressive faces and moving arms and legs now sought after by collectors.
A few weeks ago, Linn Howard, a modern-day crib director, was up on a stepladder in the Metropolitan's medieval sculpture hall directing artist Enrique Espinoza in arranging some of these figures in the branches of the 20-foot high Angel Tree that draws hordes of awed children and busloads of enchanted art lovers.
