So it's the time of year where you can't go anywhere without tripping over a Nativity Scene. Ever wonder how they originated? Well, it involves a famous face, a cave, and a few four-legged friends... THREAD 1/ 
Giovanni di Pietro Bernadone, known as Francesco, was born in Assisi in today's Italian region of Umbria, sometime around 1180. He came from a modest amount of money, his dad a cloth merchant. Francesco was being groomed to take over the family trade, but it wasn't his thing. /2
Francesco was a restless kind of kid, full of bravado, and when he was around 18, he signed up to go fight against a nearby town, Perugia. During the fighting he was captured and kept in a dungeon for a year until he could be ransomed. /2
Once he was released, Francesco joined his mates in drinking and carousing, but something was different, and as time progressed, he decided that there had to be something more to life. Around 1206, he ditched his previous life and became a hermit - much to his father's digust. /3
One day in 1208, Francesco claimed that he heard God tell him to go and preach. For the next year he did so, gaining followers as he went. Eventually they needed the green light from the Pope to establish a monastic order, and a place to meet - both were obtained. /4
There's a hell of a lot of legends about Francesco - or Francis, as he's more widely known - during this time. What is clear, however, that over the span of a decade, not only did his order grew, but that of the Poor Clares, set up by a female follower. /5
St Francis became so popular and respected, that in 1219 he was able to travel to Egypt and the Holy Land during the Fifth Crusade. There he even met the Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil - apparently, they got along quite well, despite this depiction... /6 nytimes.com/2006/12/25/opi… …
As he approached the end of his life - all that austere monastic living has an effect - Francis' efforts to preach the Good World only intensified. Desperate to impart the Nativity story to some locals, he was suddenly struck with a flash of inspiration. /7
On Christmas Eve, 1223, he gathered some animals - a cow and a donkey - roped in some volunteers, and had them perform a recreation of the Nativity in a cave at Greccio. not so far from Rome. It certainly had an effect on the crowd that gathered. /8
To say that the practice of holding a little Nativity scene caught on, is an understatement. Within a few years, churches all over the Italian Peninsula were holding live nativity scenes, and the practice soon crossed the Alps. /9
When churches couldn't get their own live Nativity scene together, they put together models, and over time these shrank, to the little sets you can buy today. I know of entire villages in Southern Germany that make a mint carving them. /10
Francis died in 1226, but left a huge legacy behind him - an order of monks that still has monasteries all over the world, a huge centre of pilgrimage and a huge number of books painting him as everything from a zen master to an environmentalist... /11
...still, I find that the Nativity Scene is probably one of my favourite of Francis' works. It's brought joy to millions around the world and it's a symbol of birth and renewal that crosses all kinds of barriers - language, class, even creed. I dig it. Thanks, Frank! /FIN
