In the Nativity window the resonances of Christian art
by Don Lorenzo Cappelletti
Nn the stained glass window depicting Christmas, located in the center of the left nave of the Basilica of San Giuseppe al Trionfale, two characteristics draw attention from the first glance: on the one hand, the presence of angels (nine) in different attitudes in all the glass areas; on the other, the line-up, all on the left, of Mary, Joseph and a shepherd.
Both of these compositional choices - due above all, it is to be believed, to the need to best occupy the spaces of a glass window that develops vertically - are however also the fruit of a happy intuition. In fact, they allow us to direct our attention, guided by the gazes of the angels, of Mary, of Joseph and of a shepherd holding a lamb, towards the Child Jesus placed at the bottom right, who, despite his decentralized position, thus rightly becomes the center of the representation. Through the gaze of the Child Jesus on the lamb in the shepherd's arms, we then understand the profound meaning of this particular centrality. We must never forget, in fact, that the outcast birth of Jesus ("there was no room in the inn" for his parents: Lc 2,7) and his being "wrapped in swaddling clothes and laid in a manger" (Lc 2,12) are an evocation of his passion, of his death and of his offering himself as food for us; in a word: of Easter, of his being the Lamb of God. It is no coincidence that the ancient Fathers of the Church remarked that the name Bethlehem in Hebrew means "house of bread".
The literary text behind this stained glass window is the Gospel of Luke 2,1-16, which, compared to the narrative of the Gospel of Matthew, is more widespread in the description of the birth of Jesus, making explicit reference, among other things, to the presence of Joseph at the time of Mary's birth and at the time of the shepherds' visit. And in fact Joseph, together with Mary, is shown adoring the baby Jesus. Although this gesture of theirs is familiar to us, it does not correspond to a fact in Scripture nor has it always belonged to the iconography of Christmas. In reality it only became popular starting from the XNUMXth century, starting from the German and Italian contexts on the basis of the mystical revelations of Saint Brigid and the so-called Pseudo-Bonaventure, and perhaps, even more, in conformity with the gesture of adoration of the Magi attested in Mt 2,11.
In our window, above the manger, there is obviously an ox and a donkey. Also in this case it is an iconographic addition (in the Gospel story of Christmas the ox and the donkey do not appear). This addition, however, is very ancient (since the beginning of the 1th century) and would never have been omitted over the centuries, because it symbolically represents the prophecy of Isaiah 3, 3: «The ox knows the owner and the donkey the master's crib"; and of Habakkuk 2, XNUMX according to the Septuagint version: "You will manifest yourself between two animals". In the patristic interpretation of the Old Testament, in fact, the ox and the donkey symbolize the Jews and the pagans who, in the economy of the New Testament, would have recognized the Child Jesus as savior.
We also analyze the angels. Two, a cherub and a seraph, depicted only with a head and wings, are in the highest part of the window; below them, three other little angels in full figure, resting on clouds and dressed in colors probably symbolic of the three theological virtues (golden yellow, green and red), holding a scroll where it is written Gloria in excelsis deodorant. Next to Jesus, there is a little angel who is arranging his swaddling clothes, while even further down, two others are playing stringed instruments. The presence of the angels at the bottom next to Jesus, in the iconography of Christmas, is rather recent, it also dates back to the 15th century and one might think that, given the Bavarian origin of these stained glass windows from the 1930s, for this detail was inspired by the great painters of that region (numerous woodcuts by Dürer, for example, present angels around the Baby Jesus). But through an opening in the stable where the main scene is set, a ninth angel can be glimpsed: it is the angel who under a starry sky announces the birth of the Savior to the shepherds (see Lc 2, 8-12). The scene is depicted almost in monochrome and in very small dimensions, because it is intended to be a flashback compared to the scene in the foreground.
The stained glass window, of the same size as the others located along the nave (362 x 136), was offered in memory of Angelico Coccia in 1932 and is part of that first group of 3 stained glass windows, also including the "Marriage of the Virgin" and the "Dream of Giuseppe", which were paid to Franz Mayer & Co. of Munich on 31 December 1932, for a total amount of 14.000 lire at the time, by the then director of the Pious Union of the Transit of San Giuseppe, Don Walter Disler.
The frame of the "grotesque" shaped window is similar to all the others, but at the top it contains an element that is found only here: a heart surmounted by the cross, from whose base two branches emerge. It could be an evocation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. In support of this hypothesis, the date of the encyclical could be Caritate Christi compulsi dedicated on May 3, 1932 by Pope Pius free interpretation” of the traditional iconography of the Sacred Heart.