The tradition of the Manger
The historical origins of the Nativity, ancient Christian tradition
URBINO (Pesaro and Urbino) - You Christian tradition of the presepio, whose fundamental elements are Maria, Joseph, the Jesus Child, the cave, the ox and the asinello, is born only by the Gospel of Luca, which he/she affirms that Maria "diè to the light its figliuolo, and it bandaged him/it, and it set him/it to lie in a manger."
The first description of the "the Savior's Cave", become destination of numerous pilgrimages, it goes up again to St. Gerolamo. According to instead the legend, St. Francis of Assisi would have been the inventor of the presepio, having organized a mixture of it from living characters the 1223 Christmas to Greccio.
According to other funds, the representation of the "Nativity" it didn't have origin from the Franciscan order but on the contrary from the liturgical representations during the office of the night of Christmas, from which St. Francis drew his/her idea.
Memorable, according to the history, the action of the Dominicans stays before, together with that of the Franciscan ones, and of the Jesuits later, in the diffusion of the presepio. It stays strengthened that in a first moment the use of the presepio was limited in he/she asked her.
In every case it is ancient the tradition, so much that examples of artistic mangers are already had in epoch medioevale. The most ancient in Italy is preserved, partly, in the Roman basilica of Saint Maria Maggiore. For that that it concerns the popularity of the representation of the birth of Jesus instead in our peninsula, it seems to arrive in the second halves Four hundred, but in the Seven hundred one it had his/her maximum diffusion.
The presepio stays, the representation of the scene and the characters of the night in which Jesus was born, reconstructed however, with a popular taste and in various way in he asked her and in the houses during the Christmas period.
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Office stamps: Sam Sabatini 329.6236574
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