Saturday, December 7th, 9:00 pm, in the Gurgo canton in the church of the Saints Grati and Eusebio di Pettinengo, the “Nativity of Pettinengo” is inaugurated, with characters in traditional clothes from different regions of Italy.
The Crib will be open every day from Sunday 8 December to Sunday 12 January, from 15.00 to 18.00 (reservations for schools – info Idillio, 3343452685) with free admission.
The inauguration will be accompanied by the presence of the “Choir of Saint Lucia of Enköping“, a choir from Sweden, the “Voices of Su Nuraghe” of Biella and the “Cantori di canton Gurgo” of Pettinengo.
An important evening resulting from the work of many, from the preparation of boards and scaffolding to set up the scenes, to the panoramic photography of the Biella mountains for the background but, above all, to the painstaking work of Mauro Zanella who over the years has created houses and animated statues for the family nativity scene and for the first time accepted to present them to a wider public.
The collaboration with the Municipality and the Parish of Pettinengo and that of the inhabitants of canton Gurgo is important.
To the hundreds of statues of different heights, are associated some characters in traditional clothes from different regions of Italy made by the Women of the Filet of Su Nuraghe.
If Valser houses with slate roofs and tegge della Valsessera with straw roofs refer to construction techniques dating back to ancient migration from Northern Europe, the shape and colors of the clothes are witnesses of the different origins of the people who live in the Biella area today, from those of the oldest settlement like the Biellese herdsmen who still practice whipping (assimilated in the imaginary to the wild Man / Om salvaje), to Veneti, Sardis, Southerners (called disparitively: “Venetas”, “Sardagnol”, “Terroni”) and to the last of the the last ones are also discriminated against today, like the Jewish Baby whose birth is remembered in a stable, but whose message of love and brotherhood is being removed.
At the end of the evening, distribution of hot and spicy apple juice obtained from Apples de La Malpenga – to all visitors, the gift of a small Sardinian ritual bread.
