Not everyone knows that the first Christmas Crib was born in Italy at the behest of St. Francis of Assisi, after his pilgrimage to the Holy Land. At Christmas 1223, he had the idea of representing the Nativity. It would become an indispensable tradition, a symbol of our Christmas, and a joy for our children.
“Messer Giovanni, if you want to help me, this year we can celebrate the most beautiful Christmas ever. … In one of your woods, in Greccio, there is a cave similar to that of Bethlehem. I would like to represent the Christmas scene and see with the eyes of the poverty in which the Child Jesus came into the world. I want to see how he was placed in a crib and lay there between the ox and the donkey “. Saint Francis
What was the first living Nativity scene like?
To win the hearts of the faithful of those who could not go on pilgrimage, Francis had the simple but revolutionary idea of bringing Bethlehem to Christians. He then organized a “staging” with an ox, donkey, and manger with straw. Farmers and shepherds joined the friars to attend mass.
A stone placed over the manger was the altar for the Eucharist. To Giovanni Velita, who made the cave available to his friend Francesco, it seemed that the baby Jesus was in the manger, flesh and blood. A priest celebrated the Eucharist because the humble Francis wanted to remain only a deacon.
Is there a representation of the first Francis’ Christmas Crib?
The cave is located in Greccio, in Rieti, where the event is commemorated yearly with a historical re-enactment. A Sanctuary has arisen around the core of the cave. There is a fresco of Francesco’s nativity scene (a copy of Giotto’s) next to Bethlehem’s Nativity. It was Giotto, at the end of 1200, who represented “the Greccio nativity scene” in the Upper Basilica of Assisi (in the photo). Although Giotto placed the scene within a presbytery and from the apse’s point of view, it is essential historical documentation. As in the other frescoes of the Assisi cycle, Giotto painted existing places and real faces. A crowd of people attends the celebration; women cannot enter and watch from the door. Francis wears the white robe of the deacon. The child is the Eucharist’s incarnation, as it seemed to Giovani. The friars are singing facing the podium, meticulously reproduced by Giotto.