Nativity
Loading...
Authors
Gabriele Riccardi
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
Creche , Nativity , Mary , Jesus , Shepherds , Angels
Alternative Title
Abstract
This creche scene was created for a chapel in the older Cathedral of Lecce in the sixteenth century and moved and remounted in the new church, with a splendid Baroque baldachin, sometime between 1696 and 1708. Despite rich documentation from pastoral visitation records and other sources, scholars disagree on the dating of the work, though the sculptor's name is known: Gabriele Riccardi. Some scholars argue that the date for the sculptures is c. 1550, whereas another dates them two decades earlier. (The standing Christ Child, made out of painted wood, unlike the figures from the Cinquecento, is not original and was likely made in the nineteenth century. Recently, a papier mâché sculpture of the Baby Jesus lying in the manger is substituted for the wooden sculpture each Christmas.) A part of the confusion is whether the grandfather or grandson of the same name (Luigi Paladini) commissioned the work. Another source of contention is the lack of clarity about whether the sculpted landscape behind the figures on top of the architectural baldachin is original or was added when the pieces were re-installed in the current form. The monochrome figures above were surely originally painted, like those of Mary and Joseph, perhaps all arranged with other figures (now lost) in a grotto, as in other Nativity scenes in the region.
Photograph(s) licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Description
Cathedral, Lecce
Citation
Fabio Antonio Grasso, ""Lecce, Cattedrale. L'altare del presepe; una nuova datazione,"" Salentolive24 (12 June 2018), http://www.salentolive24.com/2018/06/12/lecce-cattedrale-laltare-del-presepe-una-nuova-datazione/amp=1; Giacomo Lazilotta, Aurelio Persio e la scultura del rinascimento in Puglia (Bari: Mario Adda, 2010), p.42, p. 64, n. 62.