The Nativity scene at the MArRC

Christmas Eve is approaching, at the National Archaeological Museum of Reggio Calabria, with many initiatives related to the theme of the Nativity, the gift and the party.

Starting from Tuesday, 2018 December 18th, for one month, in Piazza Paolo Orsi, an extraordinary Nativity scene will be hosted in the eighteenth-century Neapolitan tradition, the work of the artist Domenico Carteri.

The characters, about a hundred, are in clay modeled by hand, embellished with clothes sewn on with fine fabrics.

The art of the Neapolitan crib has remained unchanged over the centuries as a cultural asset among the most precious of the traditions and folklore of Southern Italy, which has its roots in theology and religious rituals as in the customs of the people of South.

“The Neapolitan presepial tradition goes back to King Charles of Bourbon III,” Carteri says. “He called the most famous sculptors of the time, such as Giuseppe Sanmartino and Lorenzo Vaccaro, to realize the figures inspired by people and moments of everyday common life. The cribs made according to this tradition have a very high historical and documentary value, because they represent an era in three-dimensional paintings”.