Photo by Sean Ferigan on Unsplash
Via San Gregorio Armeno, a street in Naples, Italy, is known for shops that, around Christmastime, sell carvings of Nativity scenes. Some of them incorporate secular figures. And according to New York Times reporter Motoko Rich, that may include U.S. President Donald Trump this year.
In an article published on December 23, Rich explains, "For years, figures of Diego Maradona, the Argentine soccer star who played for the city's leading team, have been perennial top sellers, as have statuettes of Silvio Berlusconi, the media tycoon and four-time Italian prime minister. This Christmas, models of Mr. Trump are the new frontrunners."
According to Rich — the Times' bureau chief in Rome — "Three rows of Trump figures, wearing dark suits with red ties and crowned with bright yellow helmets of hair, stood on a table in a workshop at the back of" a Via San Gregorio Armeno studio that Naples resident Michele Buonincontro founded in the early 1990s.
Rich reports, "Some of Mr. Buonincontro's clients insert figurines of Mr. Trump into Nativity scenes as one of the three wise kings who brought gifts for the newborn Jesus, he said."
Buonincontro told the Times, "I am not saying he is a saint, but he is connected to religion, to religiosity."
Federico Battaglia, secretary to the archbishop of Naples, told the Times that having figures of Trump on Via San Gregorio Armeno makes sense. Battaglia noted that Jesus Christ was born "under the Empire of Augustus," adding, "Augustus was the most powerful man of his time, as Trump is of ours."
Read Motoko Rich's full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).