This striking manuscript, written by an Augustinian nun, Metilde Benvenuti (d.1772), offers us a unique point of rich documentary entry into the once ubiquitous, if also historically elusive, phenomenon of Nativity tableaux placed in churches at the start of Advent and culminating in the celebration of Christmas. Sister Metilde was keeper of the presepio in her Tuscan convent for some thirty years, the details of which she recorded meticulously in this manuscript journal. Its many pages offer tremendous insight into the annual rhythms of the material cultural production and theatrical liturgical observance of a tradition that is almost altogether lost to the historical record owing to its ephemeral and occasional character.

In truth, few early modern crèches survive. Those that do are usually those made of either permanent stone or terra cotta. Others, fashioned variously from wood, plaster, and papier-mâché and clothed in textiles and fine fabrics, are often so fragile that they cannot be regularly exposed to light and thus are rarely placed on view to members of the public, as is the case with the famously elaborate eighteenth-century Neapolitan crèche held by the Art Institute of Chicago. The presepio at Sister Metilde’s convent of Santa Maria Maddalena was of a more conventional type, consisting of a small stable, a manger, and the freestanding figures of Mary, Joseph, and the infant baby Jesus, flanked by angels.

Unlike nativity scenes today that are placed inside or outside public churches for the benefit of the entire community, Sister Metilde’s presepio was likely intended for the private use and devotion of the sisters of S. Maria Maddalena, who repositioned and reclothed the figures frequently throughout the liturgical year, replacing everyday figures of angels and the baby Jesus with special Christmas figurines. Sister Metilde’s record includes an impressive inventory; the wardrobe of the Virgin Mary alone consisted of “4 dresses, 3 mantles, 3 wigs, 4 veils, 4 crowns, and 3 belts: one of gold, one of silver, one of silk.” The baby Jesus could be similarly appareled in any number of child-sized necklaces, bracelets, rings, a silk frock with a silver belt, and even diadems of silver and gold set with coral, pearls, and garnets.

Further entries carefully recorded new accessions, whether fashioned by the nuns themselves or commissioned from artisans beyond the cloister, including elaborate textiles, candlesticks, lamps, and various exotica such as Venetian mirrors, devotional sacred hearts, and both natural and artificial flowers. Sister Metilde kept careful records, too, about the amounts paid for these articles from the presepio’s endowment, and even her own personal contributions, which included a new blue-and-white dress for the Virgin. Conversely, old and ragged clothes no longer deemed appropriate she “refreshed” with dyes, or simply “deaccessioned;” in one case, she even mentions “a veil which I threw on the fire.” In 1741, she had one of the Virgin’s wigs repaired (“the one Sister Adelaide Marzo had made in Lucca”), and in 1742 she commissioned a certain Antonio Franco Cantini of Florence to do some goldsmith work; this we know because there was a dispute over the bill. In 1744, Sister Metilde also recorded payments made to the carpenter Francesco Baroni for his work on the presepio’s hut and crib, and to Valentino Taccagni for painting them. Sister Metilde repeatedly mentioned the need to raise funds from her fellow nuns, as well as from male clerics and lay members who had particular associations with and sympathies for the convent and its sisters.

Sister Metilde was also careful to record in detail the rare occasions when the presepio was used in liturgical events that were open to those living outside the cloister, whenever it was removed from its normal setting, or when the figures were rearranged in novel ways. During the Easter season of 1739, the sisters removed the Virgin from the presepio, took her to the sacristy, placed her on a carpeted table , dressed her entirely in black, and borrowed a statue of the dead Christ from the church (“Gesù morto che sta in Chiesa”), to complete the ensemble, leaving the pair to sit in vigil with lit candles at night and adorned with vases of fresh flowers during the day. At the death of Lodovico Pandolfini, bishop of Volterra, in 1743, Sister Metilde described, not just the elaborate presence of the presepio figures in the memorial service but also  extremely ephemeral details about the musical arrangement, which began with a concert for organ, basset horn, and two violins that included renditions of Ave Regina Caelorum and Ave Maria Stella, begun by a cantor who was then joined by “many voices accompanied by organ.” In a later mass, Sister Rosa Constant Soldini sang a motet with accompaniment.