In depth
What it is
The Presepio di Botroidi della Val di Zena is an extraordinary artistic nativity scene, set up during the Christmas period at the Museo dei Botroidi di Luigi Fantini, in the village of Tazzola, a hamlet of the municipality of Pianoro, in the Bolognese Apennines, less than thirty kilometres from Bologna. The figures of the Nativity are not traditional statuettes, but naturally shaped sandstone rocks, collected from the bed of the Zena stream: stones that by a quirk of nature resemble human and animal shapes, here transformed by imagination into Mary, Joseph, the Child, the shepherds and the animals of the grotto.
What makes it special
What makes this nativity scene unique is the material it is made of: not wood, plaster or terracotta shaped by an artist, but botryoids, sandstone concretions formed millions of years ago on the seabed that once covered this stretch of the Apennines. These are the same stones collected from the 1960s onwards by the speleologist and researcher Luigi Fantini, who was the first to see faces and figures in their anthropomorphic and zoomorphic shapes. The nativity scene is also located in an unusual museum, without display cases, designed to be touched by hand, housed in an old stable in a medieval village. Every year the stones are decorated with washable chalk paint by children from local schools and catechism classes, who thus renew the figures of the Nativity. Over the years the initiative has also multiplied: copies of the nativity scene, made by the youngest children with sand, clay and sandstone inspired by the original botryoids, have been displayed simultaneously in several locations between Pianoro, Rastignano and the centre of Bologna.
Origins and history
Luigi Fantini (1895-1978), a pioneer of Bolognese speleology, had been collecting for decades, during his research in Val di Zena, the strange anthropomorphic stones from the Zena stream, unable to resist the temptation to take them home. His collection, forgotten for years, was rediscovered in 2006 at the Castello di Zena, stored inside old detergent containers. From that discovery, in 2008, the Museo dei Botroidi was born, housed in an old stable in Tazzola through the initiative of Lamberto Monti and Giuseppe Rivalta, of the Parco Museale della Val di Zena association. They launched the idea of composing a nativity scene with the botryoids, to tell the importance of Fantini's finds in a playful and accessible way for everyone. The sources consulted do not indicate a precise date for the first edition of the nativity scene. In 2020 the exhibition received a visit and appreciation from Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna. In subsequent years the nativity scene has also taken on a distributed form, with versions made by local schools displayed in multiple locations during the holidays.
What to see
Inside the museum, among the exhibits that tell eighty million years of geological history of Val di Zena, the botryoids compose the scene of the Nativity: the Madonna, Saint Joseph, the Child, the shepherds and the animals, all recognisable in the natural shapes of the stones, highlighted by the chalk colours applied by the children. Around it, the museum route, designed to be explored by touch as well, displays Fantini's complete collection, one of the largest collections of botryoids in the world, together with fossils, sands and other natural specimens from the valley.
When and how to visit
The nativity scene is set up every year during the Christmas period, normally between the end of December and Epiphany. In the last known edition, open from 22 December 2022 to 8 January 2023, the initiative expanded in distributed form, with eight nativity scenes and a geological Christmas tree made by children and displayed in nine different locations between Pianoro, Rastignano, the centre of Bologna and Gualtieri, in the province of Reggio Emilia; for that edition the sources do not report specific opening times for individual locations. The Museo dei Botroidi in Tazzola, the heart of the initiative, can be visited all year round by appointment, while from May to October it opens freely at weekends; admission is free, by donation. For information and to arrange a visit, including during the nativity scene period, you can contact Lamberto Monti.
