Piazza Maggiore nativity scene

City of Bologna, 1992

In 1992, Gianfranco Trucchia, in collaboration with his fellow professors Gabriele Galassini and Andrea Franchi and the former students of the State Art Institute of Bologna, Massimiliano Marrani, Andrea Moretti, Marcella Oliveti and Simona Ragazzi, carried out the project for a nativity scene in Piazza Maggiore, Bologna. The project involved the construction of an imposing wooden structure protecting a Nativity made of terracotta, in the wake of Bolognese tradition. The scene was to occupy the space in front of the facade of the church of San Petronio. From the opposite building, Palazzo del Podestà, a projector aimed at the facade of the church. A few days before Christmas Eve, a film representing the journey of the Comet Star, a subjective path at great speed, among the celestial bodies that would have come to meet the public in the square, should have been projected. On Christmas night a beam of white light would have hit the Nativity scene vertically. The project was presented to Monsignor Ernesto Vecchi, who greatly appreciated the originality of the work at the time. Unfortunately, with everyone's regret, an adequate sponsor was not found for the initiative. It remained a wooden model, made as a theatrical set design, which was presented by the professor's working group to the Archdiocese of Bologna.