Where to See Nativity Scenes in Italy

Naples doesn’t just display nativity scenes. It makes them. All three places below are open year-round, even in the middle of summer.

Certosa e Museo di San Martino: the nativity section Largo San Martino 5, Vomero

The star is the Cuciniello presepe, set up in an artificial cave at the back of the monastery’s old kitchens and opened in 1879. The collector Michele Cuciniello donated the figures, animals and accessories, and oversaw the setup himself. The lighting cycles through dawn, daytime, sunset and night, so the scene keeps changing as you watch. The room also holds the Perrone collection, displayed in the glass-front cabinets Neapolitans call scarabattoli, and pieces of a 15th-century nativity carved by Pietro and Giovanni Alamanno. Closed Wednesdays. The Ministry of Culture’s page.

Il Presepe Favoloso: Basilica of Santa Maria della Sanità Piazza Sanità 14, Rione Sanità

Unveiled on Christmas night 2021, this is a permanent nativity: more than a hundred figures in a glass case you can walk all the way around, in the basilica’s sacristy. It was made by La Scarabattola, the Scuotto brothers’ workshop, with the set designer and restorer Biagio Roscigno. It mixes fine-art and folk nativity styles on purpose, with a few fantasy touches. You see it on the same tour as the catacombs of San Gaudioso beneath the church. The project, by the Fondazione San Gennaro.

Via San Gregorio Armeno Between Spaccanapoli and Via dei Tribunali

The street of nativity workshops, open all year and in full Christmas swing from early November. It’s not just the Nativity: alongside clay shepherds, little houses and tiny accessories, the artisans make figures of that year’s big names in Italian news. The Naples tourist office’s page.

Rome has both ends of the story: the oldest known sculpted nativity, and an exhibition of nativity scenes from around the world every winter.

Basilica of Saint Mary Major: Arnolfo di Cambio’s presepe Piazza di Santa Maria Maggiore

In 1291, Pope Nicholas IV commissioned Arnolfo di Cambio to carve a nativity in Carrara marble, first placed near the relics of the Holy Manger. Five pieces survive: Saint Joseph, the heads of the ox and the donkey, one Wise Man kneeling in prayer, and two standing Wise Men carved from a single block. The Virgin and Child was added in the 1500s. The basilica calls it the first known presepe in art history. It was walled up in a niche from 1586 to 2005. You can see it through the basilica’s museum, with a guide, so call before you come. The basilica’s entry.

Basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli: the Santo Bambino Scala dell’Arce Capitolina 14, on the Capitoline Hill

A 2-foot statue of the Christ Child, carved, according to tradition, in the late 1400s from an olive tree in the Garden of Gethsemane. It stays in its chapel most of the year and joins the nativity at Christmas, in Mary’s arms. At Epiphany, it’s carried in procession and blesses Rome from the top of the church steps. This is where Roman children climb onto a little platform to recite poems to the Child, a custom called the predicozzi. The statue honored today is a copy: the original was stolen in 1994. Vatican News’s account.

A hundred nativity scenes under the colonnade Bernini’s left colonnade, Saint Peter’s Square

Every winter, the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization hosts an international nativity exhibition under the colonnade, free and with no reservation needed, from the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (December 8) to Epiphany. It has included a nativity built inside a leather-tanning barrel, one painted on the front of a Rome city bus, a large mechanical nativity of old Rome, and the work of a blind craftsman. The presentation of the eighth edition.

The Saint Peter’s Square nativity Piazza San Pietro, next to the tree

Here, the tradition is the place, not the nativity: a different region donates it every year, so the landscape changes too. One year, volunteers from a diocese in Campania recreated their own countryside and honored a saint buried nearby. It’s unveiled along with the tree lighting in mid-December. The Governorate’s press release.

It’s a shrine, not a museum. The friars are firm about that, and they’re right.

Santuario Francescano del Presepio Greccio, province of Rieti, Lazio

This is where Saint Francis of Assisi celebrated Christmas night in 1223. The Presepio chapel, built right in the cave as early as 1228, marks the spot. It has a 14th-century fresco from the school of Giotto showing two nativities side by side: the one in Bethlehem and the one in Greccio. You also see the friars’ dining hall and old dormitory, and the 1959 church has a clay nativity. Open every day, all year, free; groups should book a month ahead. The Valle Santa shrines website.

Genoa has a whole circuit of nativities, and a clever way to keep you going to the end.

The Passaporto dei Presepi Churches, oratories and palace museums, all over the city

There are two routes and a booklet to stamp at each stop. The tradition route covers nativity scenes set up by parishes, religious brotherhoods and private owners, from the late 1800s to today: mechanical nativities, Middle Eastern and Provençal-style nativities, and one set up on the city’s old aqueduct. The art route takes you into the public museums: an 18th-century Genoese nativity at Palazzo Rosso, paintings at Palazzo Spinola, a tiny Bavarian nativity at the Accademia Ligustica, and an 18th-century nativity at San Lorenzo Cathedral. From December 8 (Immaculate Conception) to Candlemas, with different hours at each place. The tradition route and the art route, on the city’s website.

A long-running event that has moved, which is exactly the kind of thing that can ruin a trip.

Rassegna Internazionale del Presepio: Presepi dal Mondo Historic center, between Piazza Erbe and Piazza dei Signori

Run by the Fondazione Verona per l’Arena, it was held for years in the arched corridors under the Roman Arena, then at Palazzo della Gran Guardia. In 2025 it moved into the frescoed rooms of the 16th-century Palazzo del Capitanio. From mid-November to mid-January, every day, with an admission fee. The location has already changed twice and the event’s website still mentions the Arena, so check the address before you go. The City of Verona’s page.

This Sicilian pottery town has a collection one man gathered on his travels.

Museo Internazionale del Presepe: Luigi Colaleo collection Largo San Luigi 2, Caltagirone, province of Catania

About a thousand nativity scenes and individual pieces from four continents: clay and ceramics from Caltagirone, wood, and also beeswax, coral and ivory, from German, French, Austrian, Polish, Russian, Neapolitan, Apulian and Sicilian traditions. Luigi Colaleo, a lawyer born in the town, gathered them on his travels and donated them to the town in 2007, along with his library. The museum is in a 1907 building by the Palermo architect Ernesto Basile, a leading name in Italian Art Nouveau. Open seasonally, December to late January, Tuesday to Sunday. The town’s page.

You don’t walk through this one. You admire it from a distance, and that’s on purpose.

The lighted nativity on the Hill of the Three Crosses Above Manarola, Cinque Terre, Liguria

More than two hundred fifty figures and more than seventeen thousand light bulbs, set up in the terraced vineyards and made from salvaged materials: iron, old windows, signs, cans. Mario Andreoli, a retired railroad worker, put up the first lighted figure in 1976 to keep a promise to his father, then spent the rest of his life on it. Since his death in 2022, the town and the national park have kept it going. It’s lit in early December. The park asks visitors to view it from the church square or the lookout: stay on the paths and keep out of the vineyards. The town of Riomaggiore’s page.

Two places to visit if you’re in Lombardy or South Tyrol outside of winter.

Museo del Presepio Brembo di Dalmine, province of Bergamo, LombardyReported

Founded by a parish priest, Don Giacomo Piazzoli, nicknamed “Monsignor Presepe.” The collection fills two floors of the parish buildings and includes 18th-century Neapolitan pieces, among them a diorama of more than 215 square feet, plus a re-creation of a 19th-century Bergamo workshop that made plaster nativity figures. There’s also a library, archives, stamps, holy cards and Christmas music. The parish says it’s open year-round, but we couldn’t find current hours, so call ahead. The parish’s page.

Diocesan Museum of Bressanone Hofburg, Piazza Palazzo Vescovile 2, Bressanone / Brixen

The bishop’s palace presents the nativity as a local tradition at least three hundred years old, and has the pieces to prove it: historic nativities made around 1800 by local craftsmen, alongside pieces from Tyrol, Naples and Sicily, plus church nativities on loan from private owners. Open every day, all year, except Easter Sunday and December 24 and 25. The museum’s website.