If you’re in Rome during the holidays, you may want to take a day to head nearby to Castello di Bracciano to attend what has been hailed as Italy’s largest living nativity scene. Known as the Living Presepio of the Orsini, it will be staged inside the 15^th-century Castle of Bracciano, and set in the year 1481, when the fortress belonged to the powerful Orsini family, allies of Pope Sixtus IV.

Featuring more than 200 people in period costumes from 25 historical associations of Italy, the event not only celebrates Jesus’s birth, but also a period of Italian history that gave the world an incredible number of artistic masterpieces, when Italy was at the center of Europe’s cultural scene.