In Naples, the Christmas crib has very old traditions: since 1200, during the Christmas period, some churches would mount representations of the birth with figures sculpted in painted wood. It is however at the beginning of the Eighteenth century that the crib with moving figures reaches its natural configuration: the figures are made of metallic wire covered in tow, while heads and limbs were made of polychromatic terracotta.
The crib became a trendy thing for the Borbonic kings and queens, and all their courtiers, who would model shepherds with passion and sew clothes, realizing set pieces that would occupy various rooms. The passion rapidly spread through the Neapolitan nobility, and the families would rival to own the shephers of the most important artisans, whom they'd flatter with expensive clothes and jewels made of precious stones.

Some families went actually bankrupt after purchasing shepherds made by great artists, with prices that would equal a month of salary.
The Neapolitan crib moved progressively away from its initial mystical intonation, and affirms itself, in the Eighteenth century as a spectacular, but refined and poetic, expression of the laic and mundane society that produced it.
Precious and traditional materials were used for the realization of the crib. The figures are in colored terracotta, the eyes in painted glass, while golden and silver threads were used to craft the clothes. Other materials used were antique velvet and silk, small pearls, silver filigree and little jewels.
The baldachin over the elephant is in silver while the tusks are made in ivory. The palanquin is covered in antique brocade, while the cross-bars for thansportation are made of wood from apple-fruit tree, both resistant and hard, with ivory-engraved ferrule.
The straw baskets are full of wax fruit, while the instruments are in silver, copper, prized woods inlaid with ivory and mother-of-pearl.