On the 800th anniversary of St Francis of Assisi setting up the first Nativity scene, the creche in St Peter’s Square in 2023 will come from the Diocese of Rieti, Italy, in paying tribute to the scene set up in the diocese in 1223. St Francis’ Nativity scene in a cave in Greccio featured live animals, but the one unveiled in St Peter’s Square on December 9 will not. But the scene still will be very simple: Mary and Joseph and the baby Jesus, some shepherds and figures representing the nobleman Giovanni Velita, his wife Alticama, and three Franciscan friars who, at St Francis’ behest, put a hay-filled manger, an ox and a donkey in a grotto where the local faithful could come to pray and to imagine the poverty and simplicity into which Jesus was born. The crib is accompanied by a 25-metre (80-foot) fir tree from the Piedmont region.
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