Museum of the nativity scene

The museum

The museum was born in1982from an idea ofPeppe Natellaand the artistic work of the painter SalernoMario Caro, to which the Diocese of Salerno offered the possibility to realize the crib inSan Lazzaro, adjacent to the Cathedral.

The master called to make real characters, the humble people of the neighborhood, the women and children who attended the nearby parish, setting a truly unpublished work in his spiritual representation.

The work

The Presepe is a sort of still-image of a cold starry night of a hypothetical village of Salernitano. Caroallo was inspired by Victorian postcards, the painted silhouettes of the bell-to-natures of the Nocerino Agro, the sacredness and the typology of the place.

It came out not only an original work but also a suggestive crib, whose depiction is the split of an era and a community.

The Crib consists of87 characterspainted with acrylic colors and depicted in scale 1:1 on 13 mm multilayer.
The work not only represents the nativity and the Neapolitan crib, but represents characters really existed in Salerno, including the same Mario Caroallo and Peppe Natella.

Almost enclosing the sense of the family, the artist also wanted to depict Mrs. Adriana and her daughter Rossella, respectively wife and daughter of Natella. Over the years the artist has added to the crib new figures, such as the poet Alfonso Gatto and Monsignor Gerardo Pierro.

Still today the painted crib by Mario Caroallo stands out for its originality and, after many years, remains a representative place and identity for the community of Salento.

To discover

Family Christmas
On the north wall of the room is depicted a typical Salento family of a few decades ago, aiming to celebrate Christmas. On the scene are the various components seated around a table, with a little girl who her letter and a woman coming out of the kitchen with a tray full of hot zeppoles. On the side there is the same master Caroallo depicted as you turn on a cigarette.

To know

– San Francesco and the crib

Tradition traces the first nativity scene to San Francesco d’Assisi. After a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to visit the places of the birth of Jesus, the Saint had been so impressed by Bethlehem that, back in Italy, asked Pope Onorio III to be able to leave the convent of Greccio, near Rieti, and stage the representation of the Nativity. It was December 24, 1223.