This is a typical sacred representation from the 1700s, of jesuitical and controreformist inspiration. In those time, however, the population grew bored easily watching this type of representation and so masked - characters where introduced into the story to provoke laughter, like Razzullo and Sarchiapone, popular characters like the fisherman, the shepherds, the hunter, the innkeeper..

Thus Mary and Joseph’s trip from Nazareth to Bethlehem is enriched by adventures and dangers caused by various demons like Satan, Belfagor and Astarotte and thwarted by the Archangel Gabriel. It is the triumph of good over evil around this main theme a series of episodes unravels, with no real cohesion, in an alternation of situation going from grotesque to comic to sad to joyous. In this way the spectator is certain not to be bored.

The codified text of the “Cantata of the Shepherds” which is still recited today is the work of Andrea Perrucci who published it in 1698 with the title “The true light amongst the shadows” and under the name Casimiro Ruggiero Ugone. For nearly three hundred years it has been a huge Fresco of the potent representation of the birth of Jesus Christ, filtered through the semplicity of popular sentiments.

© Copyright Surrentum December 2005