Nativity Scene In Rome, Italy Stock Photo

Typical Neapolitan nativity scene in the exhibition “Hundred Nativity Scenes in Rome Italy. The exhibition has a long tradition and started first 43 years ago. Naples is undoubtedly the most devoted city to the history and cult of cribs. In 15th century the first “figurative sculptors” appeared; they realized sacred representations in Napoli’s churches and chapels. The Neapolitan crib golden century was certainly the 18th, a time when Naples became a ‘European capital’. Naples itself was responsible for the ‘secularization’ of the presepe, taking it away from the Church monopoly and fusing the deep and faithful religiosity with the epistemological and existential fervor of the new-born Enlightenment, with everyday realism, with the then dominant theatricality, with the wonder and delight of the late Baroque, with the attention to detail and the archaeological discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii.