The Three Kings return to the heart of Bethlehem, just a few meters from the Basilica of the Nativity. The work was created by Italian painter Franco Vignazia for the new center of the Custody of the Holy Land, significantly named "Dar Al-Majus," "House of the Magi." FRANCO VIGNAZIA Painter "The starting intuition, which I worked on to start making the sketches, was that the magi can be us. They come from afar, following an important suggestion, a question, following the star, and they come all the way to Bethlehem, bringing gifts and encountering an even greater gift. Same as us, who come from afar to meet Jesus." The first sketch depicts the three Magi arriving at the grotto and being met by Joseph and Mary with the Child. But the perspective changes during a dinner with the project leader: Bethlehem is the only place where it is not necessary to depict the Grotto, because it is already there. FRANCO VIGNAZIA Painter "And so everything was revolutionized, I made a sketch on top of the paper napkin of the place where we were eating, and I then worked on that." This is how the work was enriched with faces and characters surrounding the protagonists. Some with the ancient flavor of tradition, others more modern, in an exchange between past and present and between the various ages of life. FRANCO VIGNAZIA Painter "The possibility of representing things that you know, that you know happened, and that happen again in the moment when you live, you step on these stones ... and above all it was the possibility of really encountering 'living stones' and in this dialogue give birth to the figures that I then represented. The magi do not arrive in a deserted place. They come to a place that has already encountered the Lord and welcomes them, and so there is really this exchange of gifts." Favorite character? Undoubtedly the Wise Man at center stage, the oldest. Almost a biographical note. FRANCO VIGNAZIA Painter "I have been thinking about my life and I have been thinking about this gift that reoccurs at every age. This encounter really is possible at every age." Read More