Word: mangers
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...century), the cave or stable in Bethlehem had been an object of veneration. St. Justin Martyr mentioned the present Grotto of the Nativity as early as 155; a century later, Origen discussed the authenticity of the site (even Christianity's enemies, he said, admitted it). The manger scene-with the Wise Men from Matthew and the shepherds from Luke-is one of the oldest Christian traditions. It is also the easiest to dramatize. Canticles of the 4th, 5th and 6th centuries-designed to teach doctrine to an illiterate public as well as to entertain-were the precursors...
...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 man and beast for the joy they felt at the renewing of the mystery...
...Cosimo de Medici. One historian described it as "most singular and new, for not only did one see the heavens open and clouds descend while a quantity of angels flew about and came down to earth, but the innumerable figures all walked toward the holy manger, assuming attitudes which indeed seemed entirely natural...
Such mechanical extravagance became particularly popular in Germany. A gilded brass Krippe was presented in about 1589 to Elector Christian I by his wife, Sophia. When wound up, a globe on top opens, showing God surrounded by angels; a wall below slides back to reveal the manger, angels come down from heaven to music, Joseph rocks the cradle, the ox and ass rise from their knees, and the shepherds march in, followed by the kings...
...figures. One of the most striking of the Neapolitan presepios, owned by Collector Marcello Hallecker of Naples, is shown on TIME'S cover this week. Typical of many a presepio of the period, the scene has been arranged on a replica mountainside 12 ft. across. The manger itself is all but obscured by the teeming, noisy crowd that moils about the inn, oblivious of the vertiginous angels or of the event they herald. And yet the actions of the ingeniously lifelike, exquisitely crafted figures-whether they eat or drink or play music or sell vegetables-is suffused with...