Sante Guido, the Italian master restorer who was responsible for the restoration of many monuments in Malta, the Manoel Theatre and the Italian Chapel in St John’s Co-Cathedral, has just finished restoring the oldest crib in Christendom, the Presepe in the Santa Maria Maggiore Basilica in Rome, which dates back to 1291 and is the work of the greatest architect and sculptor of the time, Arnolfo di Cambio.

The crib was commissioned by the first Franciscan Pope, Nicholas IV, following the teachings of Francis of Assisi, and motivated as well as by the Christians’ definitive loss of the Palestinian territories.

It was the intention to recreate in the basilica built by Pope Liberius in the fifth century, “a Bethlehem in the West”, housing what was believed to be the principal relics related to the birth of Christ such as the manger, and the swaddling clothes as well as the tomb of St Jerome.

Arnolfo di Cambio, a contemporary of Giotto and Dante, was born in Colle Val d’Elsa, near Florence, and through Charles d’Anjou (who was also the king of Malta) was exposed to French artistic influences especially the gothic style.

The ‘holy representation’ which has now been restored by Professor Guido and his team, consists of five blocks of marble representing Mary with Child, St Joseph, the heads of the ox and donkey and two Magi standing and one kneeling.

The figures were all massed together with no consideration given to any spatial relationship between them, but the restoration has made it possible to postion them in a different way, which seems to show the figures in an almost theatrical light, drawing in the onlooker much as the later developments in perspective would do.

Restoration has also led to the discovery that the statue of Mary, thought to be a late 16th century replacement of the Arnolfo original, is basically the Arnolfo original with some additions.

The restoration works, carried out throughout the summer, were unveiled on 15 December by the Camerlengo of the basilica in the presence of the whole chapter. The basilica museum is also displaying, until next spring, three exhibitions of the works of Arnolfo in Perugia, Orvieto and Florence, on the occasion of the seventh centenary of his death.