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| | Travel Classics: Christmas, Occasionally White, in New York: Fred Ferretti |
 | | Beneath the tree are some of The Metropolitan's small and lovely rarities, its collection of nativity figures from Naples, where two centuries ago the practice of displaying in miniature the story of the birth of Christ gave rise to art. |
 | | So avid were wealthy Neapolitan families to crate such Christmas displays that great sculptors of the time were commissioned to fashion crèches, or presepii, as they were called: and in the museum's collection are small figures, their heads and upper torsos exquisitely molded, by Giuseppe Sammartino, Salvatore di Franco, Giuseppe Gori, and Angelo Viva. |
 | | Each December these figures, with bodies of pliable twine, are taken from storage and placed around The Metropolitan Museum's blue spruce in celebration of Christmas |
| www.travelclassics.com /library/NY_christmas.shtml (1774 words) |
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