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# 74 •DECEmBER 14 , 2015
manno and Giovanni da
Nola, who expressed the
deep religious sentiment
felt by the population of
Naples.
But it was only in the eighteenth century that nativity scenes became a
system of sacred and profane elements, with both
notably mundane and purely theatrical results: an
animated scene that concerned the representation
of contemporary life in the
Kingdom of Naples.
The person who explosively brought this phenomenon into being was
Charles III of Bourbon,
who wanted the nativity
scene to reflect the grandness and complexity of the
kingdom. The king and his
wife personally attended
to the costumes and sets,
and they wanted the shepherds’ clothing to be an
extraordinary snapshot of of the adjustable mannethe outfits popular at the quin, made from sweet
time.
iron wire and oakum, a
technique which made it
In the eighteenth century, possible to create a dianativity scenes were also logue between the shea statement of the Baro- pherds.
que theatricality that took
the form of a fundamental The tailors took inspiration
innovation: the adoption
from the drawings of Saverio Gatto and Alessandro
D’Anna when dressing the
shepherds. Some of these
tailors were so specialised
in this activity that they
only dressed shepherds,
as the orders were plentiful and the work well paid.
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