Nativity of the Navy

During Christmas, the first Sunday of December to the Epiphany, the boats of the float section of the Marine Museum become the stage of the Nativity of the Navy. The crib was born in 1986 and is the work of artists Tinini Mantegazza, Maurizio Bertoni and Mino Savadori, from an original idea of ​​Guerrino Gardini.

The first statue was sculpted to St. James, patron saint of Cesenatico that over the years have been joined by many others. This is not only traditional statues you see in cribs, but glimpses of inspiration from the life of common people of a fishing village, which tells through them, the life of a city: fishermen, carpenters, puppeteers, fishmonger, woman The wraps, children and musicians. Together with the Holy Family, shepherds and traditional, we can see who sail or mend their nets, who leads the boats, who sells the fish, without neglecting the particular singular as the presence of a group of dolphins that overlook the water with curiosity.

The statues are life-size: the faces, hands, feet and all exposed parts are carved in stone pine, draped dresses are made of canvas stiff with wax brushwork of hot massive structures made of wood from the wire mesh molded in shape. The result is impressive, made even more impressive by the illuminations of the boats that are reflected on the water channel.

Each year the Nativity is enriched by a new statue and a new character. From 7 figures with which debuted in 1986 now is the sculptural heritage of fifty statues. It goes thus achieving the project artists Savadori Bertoni and over the years to equip each of the vessels of a coxswain and a bowman.

The figures are thought of as elements of a performance to be seen from the shores of the harbor by Leonardo as an audience, enlightened, because in the crib are the lights that give life to the figures and punctuate the story. And it is after sunset that the Nativity of the Marine lights, like opening a curtain.
That fall of 1986 in Cesenatico

In the first half of the ’80s, Cesenatico was more and more towards a tourist offer that would unfold throughout the year. Economic groups were at the forefront of this change “epochal” for the entire social life of Cesenatico. The period of Christmas, in particular, could be interesting for a foreigner who wants to see – or revise – the Adriatic coast out of the summer crowds and the heat of August.

So it was that at the urging of Guerrino Gardini, then President of the Association of Hoteliers in Cesenatico, there was a meeting between trade associations, municipalities, and some artists at the forefront Tinini Mantegazza, now known citizen of Cesenatico and his wife Velia for the television play and commitment. Together with some friends bound together by their common passion for the theater: Mino Savadori, and Morello Ciaccafava Grace Rinaldi. After the meeting, it came to the decision to build a Nativity statues to be placed on the boats of the Marine Museum.

It is hoped then that the crib could “become an added attraction for tourism Cesenatico, which has now crossed the barrier of one summer.” The late Walter Walter, then Councillor for Productive Activities, so he presented the first edition of the Nativity: “And ‘Christmas 1986, the first step towards other anniversaries: the Nativity of the Navy has to grow, crowd year after year and become a new people great monument to the sea, tradition, heritage of beautiful things, especially in recent years, our city has been able to accumulate and enhance. ”
The poetics of the crib

The passion for the theater that unites those who designed and set up this is definitely the key to the Crib of the Navy. From the early medieval narratives, clear image of a theatrical representation of the Nativity, with the lights illuminating the night of Greccio-Bethlehem almost turned into a stage, where the characters of the Gospel story is intertwined with people who represent themselves, their lives, their jobs, without solution of continuity between the game of theater and life itself.

Hence the poetic choice of the Nativity of Cesenatico, which represents the life of an Adriatic fishing village: a stage that becomes a microcosm, beyond the historical period defined, pointing to a sort of “fantastic realism” that the attempt ‘ company to contain them all.
The materials

Started the project of the figures, it now poses the problem of materials, which had to be strong, lightweight, not to weigh too much on historical ships, and also express a natural sympathy with the extraordinary stage, almost a sort of generation from the boats themselves. It was inevitable to choose the materials used in the construction of traditional boats: wood, canvas, wax, the colors used in the dyeing of the sails that distinguished families of the sailors. The lightness of the figures was resolved through carved wooden parts, and grafted into a skeleton functional plasticity of the figure. Head, hands and feet were then inserted into a structure covered with fabric draped to reach the volume that had been drafted.

We came to the aid of another friend of Cesena, Maurizio Bertoni, wood carver from the elegant hand and decided that he was excited, by virtue of his passion for boats and its non-dormant love of popular representation, reminiscent of his early as a carver of marionettes and puppets.

In order to give rigidity to the draping of fabrics and avoid the “dress” and linevitabile and far more serious “fluttering” of the same suit, came to the rescue Mariangela Gualteri, founder of Theatre of Valdoca of Cesena, who had made small theaters that fabrics stiffened and then colored and coated with hot wax on them. The effect, experienced on the major surfaces of paintings by one of the Magi, was beyond our expectations, and so we applied this technique to all figures.

Over the years the techniques of sculpture, assemblage and preservation, subject to the basic technique, you have gone as refining and consolidating, achieving more effective than the result.

Hence the poetic choice of the Nativity of Cesenatico, which represents the life of an Adriatic fishing village: a stage that becomes a microcosm, beyond the historical period defined, pointing to a sort of “fantastic realism” that the attempt ‘ company to contain them all.
The first statues

The first group of statues was carried out at very short notice, during days and sleepless nights of work. The sign of civilization was maritime thought and condensed in a sailor’s kneeling in the act of offering fish.

The Holy Family was conceived with Mary holding the baby, to make Jesus more visible, but also to accentuate the closeness between mother and son of the bodies, as in the tradition of painting of the Madonna and Child, but also that of the Nativity and the Nativity. Joseph standing next to Mary completed the picture of the Nativity, with the basket / cradle in which transmute the manger. They could not miss the three Magi to weave the element with the adoration of the trip, the exotic, the stranger who arrives: all elements of the life of a fishing village where who is on the ground often has eyes on the ‘ horizon, to see who comes from the sea, our east. The Magi would obviously does not come with camels and other animals but on a boat.

The figures were designed from the outset as part of a representation and then built to be seen from afar, from the banks of the canal Leonardo as an audience, and how to take these functional light to be lit, because as the night of Greccio / Bethlehem are the lights that give life to the figures, the story. And it is after sunset that the crib becomes a theater, as in the theater when the lights go out in the audience, the curtain rises and the stage is illuminated.
Work that continues

Like any theater set too Nativity of the Marine is a collective in which play an important role technicians, electricians, the curators of the Museum who collaborate to carry and place the figures in their boats, as those who take care of transport from the laboratory the banks of the canal.

This is the base of the affection of the whole city against this work, and has contributed decisively to continue in this narrative and to overcome the many difficulties encountered in the course of twenty years in the work of preservation and expansion of the characters in this story.

More than forty figures have been made over the years, by inserting elements of the Gospel story (from the great angel tree is hoisted at the stern of the great transport lugger) with people in the life of a fishing village into a sort of Fantastic Realism which characterizes the entire construction.

For they are then added two figures are almost a bridge between the Gospel and the story of a fishing village: Francis of Assisi on the sea side which welcomes visitors with James the Greater, the patron saint of the city, the same as is venerated at Compostela in Spain in the far west of Europe, at the end of one of the most popular pilgrimage routes in the world.

(By www.presepemarineria.it)