Francesco Simeti Creates New Nativity for Palermo's Oratorio di San Lorenzo

Francesco Simeti (Palermo, 1968) is the artist selected for the 2018 edition of Next, a secular ritual initiated by the Amici dei Musei Siciliani. For nine years, the association has commissioned contemporary artists to create works inspired by Caravaggio's stolen Nativity for the Oratorio di San Lorenzo in Palermo. The 16th-century building, known for stuccoes by Giacomo Serpotta, is infamous for the theft of Caravaggio's 1600 painting on the night of October 17–18, 1969. Simeti's work, unveiled on the night of December 24–25, presents an iconoclastic Nativity: human figures are absent, replaced by a profusion of animals drawn from art history—Giotto, Benozzo Gozzoli, medieval bestiaries—and untamed nature, symbolizing the miracle of rebirth. For the first time, the original frame of Caravaggio's stolen painting is displayed alongside the contemporary work, highlighting absence and unresolved debts with the past.