Little little baby Jesus and the bay of Naples

On one of my last days- maybe THE last day in Naples- I rode the funicular with a very nice young couple from Beverly, Mass up to the Museo at the San Martino charterhouse on Capidomonte. From the hill, there's a clear view of the bay and Vesuvius- stunning. The museum (much of which was inexplicably closed the day we went) includes a vast collection of these small terre cotta figurines. They began producing these in the 14th century or thereabouts for churches- and back then they were larger, almost lifesized. They just kept getting smaller and the nativity scenes kept getting more and more elaborate. One of them, the Presipe Cuciniello,consists of 162 people, 80 animals, 28 angels, and about 450 miniature items (this picture is just a detail)- It's really amazing, like a fantastic dollhouse. Well, clearly the craftsmen felt compelled to out-shrink each other- and this definitely outdid the competition. He placed his nativity scene inside an eggshell- I should have photographed something to give you a sense of the scale- but it's a eggshell! the entire thing isn't much bigger than your thumb- or maybe two thumbs. Incidentally, versions of these figurines are also found in Sicily which has its own little puppets tradition- Teatro di Pupi- Marionettes. This is, after all the land of the wooden boy who wanted to be real, Pinocchio and oh... I can't remember the name of the guy who made Pinocchio, Giuseppe?, probably. Google it.