Italy > Liguria

Posted on 04/12/2006

With the crib, the manufacturer was not just a spectator of the birth of Christ, but also became the creator, the narrator and the scenery identify with the reality of his time.
Albisola (Savona) - "I Figulinai": the story of Gelindo and Gelindo
The cribs are thus of "museums" that narrate the lives and customs of the era in which they are constructed.
Everyone is like a theater production and the manufacturer can invent scenes and dialogue he became the protagonist of a story. Everyone has the power to intervene in the story and characters changing scenery.
Faith, myth, history and everyday realism merge creating cribs anachronistic as those in which the Child has the features Eastern, Asian or African and the characters change depending on where they are being built, such as "macaques" of Albisola and the history of Gelindo and Gelindo.

Once upon a time, so always start the story telling and so begins our story: that of Figurinaia of Albisola.

Each year in Savona, during the Feast of Saint Lucia, December 13, an Figurinaia went to the fair to sell its terracotta figurines and all told the story of Gelindo and Gelindo, the first two pastors came to the cave of Bethlehem bringing with them gifts for Mary and Joseph: A pullets to make hot food and bands to wrap the Child.
The nice old lady had one of his staff in order to have the statues of the crib and all said: "Gelindo and Gelindo, husband and wife should be put in front of everyone and next to the cave must be Matthew, brother of Gelindo, who plays the pipe."
According to his narration, Matthew met his sister and brother-in-law returned by the Sacred
Cave and saw them so happy to have the desire to go himself to pay homage to the Holy Child, regretting, however, be so poor as to have no more to bring to his music.
With the single gift in its possession, he went to the cave where they played for "You come down from the stars" and was so beautiful that music that Jesus turned to look at him smiling.
The woman continues with the provision of other statuettes: "Then you have to put U'Zéunn and A'Zéunna who are husband and wife, the eternal cold wrapped in a long cape. Then put the laundress, Bartholomew, the pastor and his wife, the two women who carry fagots to the pottery kiln and two soldiers.
The more distant you have to put the Magi, the black one for last, because being a pagan is lost on the road. "
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Since half of the "Figurine of the crib Albisola, a town in Liguria in the province of Savona, were made almost exclusively from" figulinai "women who worked in the clay factories pignatta albissolesi," dribbler ", ie from a beating palms of hands to another to make it more plastic and without intrusion of air to facilitate the work then turned to those who forged pots and pans.
Part of this red clay was brought to the house to continue the work by the piece (with the help of the whole family), doing the "Pernette, small cones used as supports in the furnace. The remainder, which remained as a gift to the workers, was pressed into molds to make plaster statuettes which were then arranged radially within a basin and brought to the furnace (which worked), for cooking or cooked at home, covering the basin of coal and giving fire.
When cooked all provided to decorating using cold colors, lively to attract attention and give the feeling of Christmas joy. The peculiarity of these figures, called "macaques" on their face is oval, with two blacks dots for the eyes, one red for the lips and the bright color of their clothes, and Gelindo Gelindo and are the two historical figures of the "macaques" of Albisola.
This typical figure of albissolese presepe continues today through the passion and the art of Maria and Renato Pickaxe who have set up in city Lucet Albisola of Superior, in a hall at the Church of St. Matthew, the "Crib Artistic Engineering".
There are over 130 square meters which reproduce the local scene as it was the beginning of'900. The houses and buildings are made of plywood, sand, cement and slate.
Especially valuable are the reproductions of Villa Gavotte and churches of St. And St. Nicholas Peter.
The crib, comprising about 500 people, almost all in motion, represents the ancient professions: farmers, potters, fishermen, blacksmiths, woodsmen. The scenario offers glimpses of courtyards, squares, interiors of homes, fields and landscape varies from sea to the hills where the snow falls, the night alternating day and dusk, the street lamps light up and illuminate the homes. The stars appear in the night.
It is not only a great and wonderful crib that offers glimpses of the Ligurian town known for its pottery, but, like all scenes, is also a perfect reproduction of ancient crafts and snapshots of everyday life of an era: a museum of life and crafts of long ago ...
The crib is open all year round by appointment by calling Mary and Renato Pickaxe tel. 019487857 (at meals). Free admission.
Around Christmas time of the visits is: Holiday 10/12 - 15/18, 30 Weekday 15/18, 30

Arenzano - The crib ceramic

Arenzano, sunny seaside resort boasts one of the cribs permanent characteristic of Liguria, built in the years 1969-1970, the master potter Elisha Salino of Albisola (known pottery town a few kilometers from Arenzano).
Presepistica Ligurian tradition has been interpreted through the use of clay: ceramics and majolica.
Figurines, pottery groups and settings are the result of patient work of the artist who has also modeled, stirring patiently scagliola, plaster and jute to settle the vast cave full of stalactites and stalagmites which develops the story of the birth of Christ .
A path through the cave on the aft side is placed in this huge crib with the figures in which, as the artist said: "we can recognize." Monks and priests, masons, craftsmen, drunkards and beggars, sellers of chestnuts and schoolchildren, scholars and soldiers, pipers and sellers, women and children, are the characters who could meet Salino daily.
Hovels in the hills, houses painted in rosy hues, the ocher of the coasts and a skilful sleight of hand that the space expands indefinitely give a fascinating scenario.
On the left side of the path you play scenes from the Old Testament. Those of the New Testament are located on the right side.
The crib, made with over a hundred large statues in polychrome ceramics of Albisola is set in a large artificial tunnel, shaped like a cave, in the Sanctuary. Just steps down, the view of the cave is hitting us with the greatness of the whole and striking imitation of the natural caves, full of stalagmites and stalactites shaped strange, when the eye gets used to the faint luminosity of the place, you are before a wonderful scenario presepistico. Several groups of sculptures along the trail tell the biblical episodes. The figures reproduce the people of the people of the years in which the artist worked.
The crib, permanently located in the basement of the cloister can be visited by entering the plaza fountain.
Info: Sanctuary of the Child Jesus. Arenzano (Genova)
hours: daily, 9-12 / 15 -18
www.santuario-gesubambino.org