The Italian presepe: history and meaning of an ancient Christmas tradition

Monica Sharp explains why the comforting presence of the crèche persists.

The Christmas crèche: the most iconic of holiday decorations. More totem than decor, and predating the festive tree by centuries. In its simplicity, art meets faith, and the Incarnation of the God Child is further materialized in figures of wood or clay.

Here in Italy, the home of the presepe (PREH-seh-pay), Italians take the tradition very seriously, and in its most minimal representation features the tiny but carefully crafted figures: Joseph, Mary kneeling in a blue robe, three Wise Men just in from parts East bearing gifts, a collection of insouciant farm animals at their posts. And of course, the star over the shed. Then last of all, the baby in the manger, traditionally placed at Christmas Eve.

The Italian presepe comes from the Latin praesaepe, which means ‘enclosure, pen, or hut, dwelling’, derived in turn from the verb saepire, meaning ‘to surround, to enclose, to wrap’. 

Presepe was used in the Vulgate, the 4th-century Latin translation of the Bible, to refer to the manger where Jesus was born, and preserved in Italian as presepe. Although I took Latin in school, it took years living in Italy to get used to this soft Italian word for the rougher English crèche, whose very sound suggests the coldness of that night.

In English, the word crèche entered through Old French, which took it from the Germanic for ‘crib’ – Kripp. Baby Jesus’ crib does make sense, after all, to the English ear. But the Old French crèche referred to the manger or feeding trough, and eventually became associated with the nativity scene itself. 

Around the world the miniature nativity scene, when not called some version of a presepe or a crèche, is often named some version of Bethlehem (the Spanish Belén, for example) in a nod to the place of Christ’s birth.

St. Francis of Assisi (1226+) is credited with creating the first nativity scene in 1223.

Inspired to reenact Christmas Eve after joining a Holy Land Crusade in 1219-1220, he hoped that the staged nativity would help people recognise Christ’s coming in poverty and humility. 

The first nativity scene for Christmas Mass in Greccio, Italy, was set in a cave with a manger filled with hay, an ox, and a donkey. Actor friends of the saint portrayed Mary, Joseph, the Wise Men, shepherds, and villagers.

In The Life of St. Francis, St. Bonaventure quotes St. Francis:

I want to do something that will recall the memory of that Child who was born in Bethlehem, to see with bodily eyes the inconveniences of his infancy, how he lay in the manger, and how the ox and ass stood by.

This first nativity scene more than 800 years ago became the inspiration for modern nativity plays, pageants, and Christmas crèches. The intent of that first presepe in Assisi lives on today, stirring awe in every heart as we behold the divine hidden in the humble, reminding us also that in every joy is contained a seed of sorrow and suffering, and in all suffering something greater and more transcendent.

My family and I have lived in Italy for years now, a land where St Francis feels ever present in culture and reference. When our children were young, we naturally were drawn to Assisi during the holidays. The hilltop town has been welcoming tourists who are most frequently motivated by a devotion to the saint, and that calm, kind nature remains present today. 

In December, every shop in Assisi places a presepe in the window, with medals and signs affixed to the walls, denoting that they are civic participants in this beloved global tradition. 

Walking in the stone-paved streets with twinkling lights strung between walls, the tiny Bethlehems in all their different variations feel like tangible prayers for home, peace, and love. We cannot help but gaze at the scenes.

As a child who moved often from place to place for my father’s work, I felt a certain obsession with miniatures and kept an old dollhouse, glued together from a kit by my father, in a constant state of remodelling. I wallpapered with wrapping paper, used fabric for rugs, sewed tiny towels, made miniscule art to hang on the walls. With my allowance I bought smaller items for the dollhouse from hobby stores. 

When home feels elusive, it is natural to replicate the desired reality in miniature, and to control the environment, to a certain extent, like a divine force. By miniaturizing the safe world we wish for and manifesting this desire, we form a concrete prayer.

Every culture maintains its tokens and totems, whether on the move physically, like the Tuaregs of North Africa who treasured tiny silver replicas of household items, or on a more spiritual plane, watching the seasons and years turn with the liturgical calendar. 

Perhaps a certain level of syncretism brought us the presepe. As humans, we are primed to crave a miniature scene upon which to meditate and pray. 

Hinduism favors miniature temples, called murtis, depicting Ganesha, Shiva, or Vishnu. Shinto shrines, called kamidana, are common in Japanese homes, dedicated to kami (spirits), and contain miniature statues or images of deities. As with the presepi, these miniature representations of real life function as religious or community tokens that serve as symbols of faith, protection, and good luck.

In Florence, the presepi are everywhere. The best known-one is terra cotta, life-sized, outdoors at the north corner of the famous Duomo and in the shadow of an enormous Christmas tree, another symbol of sacrifice. Choir music plays all day and night via a few well-hidden amps behind the wooden shed. 

Another elaborate and well-known presepe is tucked into the baroque Chiesa di San Firenze across town, a destination for our daughter and her friends when they were young and who delighted in recognizing and naming every detail placed in the scene for their amusement, entertainment, and perhaps as a gentle nudge toward consideration of the divine.

One of my favorite crèche sightings, though, is when a recycled holiday greeting card is thoughtfully placed by a citizen in a buchetto di vino. The buchetti di vino themselves hark back to medieval times in Florence, and more recently have become popular again, as their tiny windows with hinged shutters facilitated the delivery of local bulk wine. 

A handful of them have been reopened as retail wine outlets (knock on the shutter, glass of wine pops out, place money in the outreached hand) but most remain closed, and become from time to time impromptu modern art exhibits as creativity and whimsy course through the streets of Florence.

In the south of Italy, the presepi seem to aspire toward comfort, a life apart from toil in drought-ridden fields as sharecroppers under an absent landlord. Perhaps they also represented a life closer to Francis’s original aid to imagining the beginning of suffering.

Their depth and detail increase as the land refuses to yield crops or a living. In Napoli and on the Amalfi coast, presepi routinely feature moving parts, running water, and tiny light bulbs frequently placed in red and orange for miniature bakeries, at the backs of tiny ovens or in miniscule hearths.

One year the priest at our school, Don Alessandro, accidentally blessed a surplus of bambini Gesù, little models or statues of the baby Jesus which inspire such affection in Italians. We received one of the extras, carried home in my husband’s pocket, which felt appropriate. An orphan finding a home. 

This bambino Gesù remains even now the focal point of our home presepe under our tree. The lost extra child, blessed and rare, with a story attached.

Our presepe is humble, composed of odds and ends. No designer crèche here.

Some plastic palm trees. Pua the pig and Heihei the chicken from the animated film Moana. Elsa and Anna as Mary and possibly Elizabeth or some peasant neighbor, a few mismatched plaster figurines that we picked up in an outdoor mercantino. The motley collection feels right in the holiday spirit to me.

Gingerbread houses offer another form of token miniature, the house of plenty, safe and warm and full of good things to eat. (Avoiding Hansel and Gretel references.) Perhaps a lesser need for comfort and a totem home. 

This year we bought a kit and duly decorated it, then raised the roof. It lasted less than an hour before it collapsed in ruin on our dining room table. We ate its pieces in an agape holiday dessert, or just general gluttony.

What happens when people gaze together on an aspirational tableau of peace? We wish it for ourselves. We wish it for everyone in a wordless prayer. We see that it is possible to imagine – and what can be imagined can be manifested.

As we gaze on the nativity scene, we are reminded of the message of Christmas – that the lowly be lifted, the oppressed be aided, the marginalised find justice, and that we oppose injustice and violence wherever it is found.

May we patiently wait. May there be guidance. May visitors, known and unknown, safely arrive. May gifts be offered. May we find unexpected abundance in darkness. May we be welcomed.

May the presepe enclose and embrace us in the promise of peace, warmth, and abundance.

Like what you’ve read? Consider supporting the work of Adamah by making a donation and help us keep exploring life’s big (and not so big) issues!