Word: greccio
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...elements of the Nativity scene were established, the first recorded real crèche was made in 1223 by St. Francis of Assisi. Christmas had always been for him the "Feast of Feasts" when "God condescended to be fed by human love." In the church at the town of Greccio, three years before he died, St. Francis preached before a manger filled with hay, beside which stood an ox and an ass. Wrote an early biographer, Thomas of Celano: "Greccio was transformed almost into a second Bethlehem, and that wonderful night seemed like the fullest day to both...
...Greccio crib had an instant appeal to the people, with its direct and silent simplicity in an age when the mystery plays had become elaborate and verbose. More and more, painters and sculptors began to concentrate on the episodes surrounding the birth of Jesus, and Renaissance nobles as well as churches began to commission cribs. In the early isth century the talk of Florence was a presepio designed by the young artist Bernardo Buontalenti for the son of Cosimo de Medici. One historian described it as "most singular and new, for not only did one see the heavens open...
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