Sanctuary of Greccio site features

The sanctuary is set like an eagle's nest in the rock of the Monti Sabini at 665 m, two kilometres from the medieval village of Greccio and about 15 km from Rieti, its buildings stacked over several levels around a belvedere terrace that looks out across the whole Valle Santa.

Coming up the provincial road you pass a bronze of John Paul II, placed in July 2016, shown blessing the valley. Two hairpins further on, at the car park, bar and information office, the long rock-cut stairway begins. Two statues of St Francis stand at its foot, one stone and one bronze, the bronze added in 2005; near the top a small terraced garden holds Omaggio a San Francesco, a travertine sculpture carved in 1993 by the Sicilian sculptor Leonardo Cumbo.

The stairway ends at the Cappella del Presepio, the heart of the place, built around the grotto where tradition puts the Nativity of Christmas Eve 1223. Past the benches is the grotto itself: small and plain, an altar and a couple of seats, with the recess in the rock under the altar table where the figure of the infant Jesus is said to have been laid. Above the altar is a lunette fresco of the 1400s in the Giottesque manner, attributed to an anonymous master of Narni and dated 1409. Its right half is the original Nativity at Bethlehem, the Virgin nursing the child with Joseph present; its left half is Francis's re-enactment at Greccio, the saint in a deacon's vestments kneeling before the Child with the people of Greccio behind him.

A corridor leads from the chapel to the old monastery, past two 14th-century frescoes given to the school of the Maestro di Fossa -- an Umbrian-Marche Nativity and a St John the Baptist. The old monastery holds the friars' refectory with the remains of its lavabo and drain, the 7-by-2-metre dormitory, the pulpit of San Bernardino, and Francis's tiny cell hollowed from the rock.

Upstairs, above the presepe chapel, is the first church of the sanctuary, dedicated to St Francis and St Bonaventure. A 16th-century Umbrian Deposition among saints hangs over the altar; a 14th-century fresco on the left wall shows Francis and the angel announcing the remission of his sins, with a fine 15th-century tondo of the Madonna and Child attributed to Biagio d'Antonio above it. The choir keeps its wooden stalls, a lectern and a revolving lantern-stand that let the friars light the pages of the choir book. In the adjoining oratory hangs the portrait of St Francis the friars venerate: local tradition says it was painted in 1225 for his friend Jacopa de' Settesoli, which would make it the only portrait taken in his lifetime -- though the canvas here is a 14th-century copy of a lost original. It shows him with a suffering face, drying his eyes with a handkerchief, because of the eye disease he was being treated for by the papal court's doctors at Rieti.

The modern church of the Immacolata Concezione, of 1959, holds a ceramic relief of the Immaculate Virgin by Lorenzo Ferri of 1965-66 in its apse and a large wooden crib by the same sculptor, made in 1967 with figures from the Val Gardena. A second crib in terracotta, by Luigi Venturini, dates from 1962. The gallery holds a permanent and still-growing exhibition of nativity scenes.

Two hermit sites in the woods just outside -- the grotto where Blessed Giovanni da Parma lived in penance for 32 years, from 1257 to 1289, and Francis's own little cell, now an oratory with an 18th-century Death of St Francis -- are not open to the public.

The sanctuary is small and stacked over several levels, and its best things are a cave, a painted lunette and a set of rooms the first friars actually used.

• The Grotta della Natività -- the cave where Francis staged the living Nativity on Christmas Eve 1223, with the recess under the altar that tradition says held the figure of the child.
• The 1409 lunette -- a Giottesque fresco attributed to an anonymous master of Narni, showing Bethlehem on one side and Greccio on the other.
• Francis's cell -- a very small chamber cut into bare rock in the old monastery, also called the sacro speco.
• The first friars' rooms -- refectory with the remains of its lavabo and drain, a dormitory of 7 by 2 metres, and the pulpit of San Bernardino.
• Dormitory of San Bonaventura -- built entirely of wood around 1260-70 and used until 1915, fifteen cells off one corridor; the first on the right housed Bonaventure and Bernardino of Siena.
• The portrait of St Francis -- venerated in the oratory, a 14th-century copy of an original that local tradition dates to 1225.
• The starry vault -- the barrel vault of the first church, painted as a night sky with Blessed Giovanni da Parma.
• The belvedere -- the terrace the buildings are arranged around, looking out over the Valle Santa reatina.
• Agnini's bronze doors -- three portals on the 1959 church, the front relief weighing over 30 quintals, cast in Verona in 1995.
• The crib collection -- a permanent, growing exhibition of nativity scenes in the gallery of the modern church.
• The chapel on Monte Lacerone -- at 1204 m, two kilometres up a rough woodland path, built by Clement XI in 1712 where Francis is said to have had his hut.