L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2019 www.italoamericano.org L'Italo-Americano 2 2 3rd of December, the morning. Luca Cupiello and his wife Concetta wake up with their usual cup of Neapolitan coffee. Luca has a passion for Christmas tradi- tions and can't wait to dedica- te the day to the setting up of his Presepe, in spite of the complaints of his wife and son, Nennillo, who consider it anachronistic. This is the first scene of, probably, the most famous among Eduardo De Filippo's tragicomedies, which was represented for the first time on the 25th of December 1931. The whole play opens on the all-Italian tradition of staging Jesus' Nativity. "Presepe's religious, it's moving!" the head of the family states, baffled and surprised, in the first act of Natale in casa Cupiello, while facing a son indifferent to the ritual's own sacrality. His retur- ning question "te piace 'o presepio"(do you like Presepe?), even when the conversation is about something else, always generates the same answer: "Nun me piace!" (I don't like it!). Nobody seems inte- The ritual of Presepe is a piece of Italian culture From the director rested in what Luca had begun preparing a month before Christmas, so that it could be ready when the family finally celebrates. Already in the 1930s, Eduardo wanted to show on stage a society that had been gradually losing its familial, cultural, religious points of referen- ce. In this theatre pièce, the Presepe turns into something useless, a cliché, an old man's obsession, looked upon with a mix of compas- sion and intolerance. But our Presepe, its ritual, it's far from being obsolete. If the birth of Presepe is historically attributed to Saint Francis of Assisi, who made it for the first time in Greccio, in 1223, with the aim of evoking the moment of Christ's birth and in a place he found so similar to Bethlehem — which he had recently visited — the ima- gery itself of the Nativity touched great part of Italy's history of art. From Botticelli's Adoration of the Magi (Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi), to Giotto's Nativity in Padua's Cappella degli Scrovegni; from Piero della Francesca's Nativity, today kept at the National Gallery of London, to Correggio's, at the Pinacoteca di Brera (Milan), many artists found inspiration in a theme that appeared for the first time in the paleo-christian period. The oldest representation of the birth of Christ, as well as the adoration of the Wise Men, is in Rome and dates back to the 3rd century AD. It's in the Priscilla Catacombs, along the Via Salaria: 13 km of underground tunnels, home to an immense amount of precious artifacts. The iconography of the Presepe, however, is not only part of the history of our art or of the church, nor is it a simple folkloristic devide set up for tourists: it's been in the life of Italians for centuries, it's integrant part of their history and identity. The Christmas tree, with its lights and ornaments, Santa's village, "Babbo Natale" and his elves, Saint Nicholas and his presents, they all arrived in Italy much, much later. They have been welcomed and included, they have been made part of end of the year's festivities, but everything started with, and for centuries it revolved around, the Presepe. Simple at first, then more and more artistic. Set up in chur- ches first, then in the homes of the wealthy and finally in those of everyone, it eventually became a family tradition. If we want to make true Christmas spirit ours again, we must reclaim our own traditions and symbolisms, of which the Presepe is one of the highest representations. The Nativity evokes socially posi- tive values: familial love, mercy, sacrifice, humility, charity. As Tommaso da Celano, Saint Francis'own hagiographer, used to say, to make a Presepe "you prepare the crib, bring some hay, the ox and the donkey. There, we honor simplicity, we exalt poverty, we praise humility." Understanding its meaning, perceiving the value of this ancient tradition, allows us all to truly seize a piece of Italy's cultural identity. Beyond religion, the Presepe holds within a slice of local identity, of our territory, of regional history and culture. We only need to think about the Presepe in Rome, the one where the crib is placed among Imperial ruins, or that typical of Abruzzo, entirely made up of wooden sculptures, without forgetting, of course, the Presepe Napoletano, filled with a plethora of different images, of people you'd meet in the street, of everyday life's characters: the inn keeper, the gipsy, the fisherman are as essential as the ox and the donkey. And every one of them has a precise meaning: the wine seller embodies the sacred (it symbolizes the Eucharist, it evokes the bread Jesus dips in the wine, to represent His flesh and blood), while Benino, the sleeping shepherd who dreams the Nativity, mirrors the wait for Christmas, the path of every human being towards this essential, miraculous event. But each of the 72, most typical figures of the Presepe Napoletano invites us to reflect upon life, death, spirituality, religiosity, or even upon the cycle of seasons, just like the food vendors who allegorically represent the 12 months of the year. The meaning of objects is far from being casual, too: the bridge represents the action of passing, while the river underneath is time, and the landscape itself has to show at least three slopes, to give the impression that everything leads to a very specific place. And what does all this mean? That every community sets the Presepe in its own environment, it transforms it in an expression of its own craftsmanship, it brings into it a part of its own culture. In this sense, the Presepe is a ritual that has to be preserved and possibly valorized, because it truly speaks and tells about us. Simone Schiavinato, Director NEWS & FEATURES TOP STORIES PEOPLE EVENTS

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