By IANS/AKI,
Rome: Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, his estranged wife Veronica Lario, transsexual prostitutes and Pope Benedict XVI are among figurines featured in a mock nativity scene in the southern city of Naples.
The nativity scene shows Berlusconi kneeling in front of Lario, while Noemi Letizia – an 18-year-old lingerie model and aspiring actress linked to the premier – is seen behind him.
A figurine of Patrizia D’Addario, the prostitute who claims to have slept with Berlusconi in exchange for money and favours, is also featured in the nativity scene.
Pope Benedict XVI, is shown in the nativity scene wearing a plaster cast, after he fractured his right wrist in July in a fall during his summer holiday in the Alps.
The nativity scene also features the former governor of the Lazio region, Piero Marrazzo, who is at the centre of a scandal involving transsexual prostitutes, blackmail and drugs.
He is reportedly on a spiritual retreat at a monastery outside Rome.
Figurines of transsexual prostitutes are also seen next to a figure representing Marrazzo.
The nativity scene’s figurines were made by one of Naples’ best-known nativity scene makers, Marco Ferrigno, who is exhibiting his creation at a famous street in Naples – Via San Gregorio Armeno.
The street is known for its many shops selling imaginative nativity scenes.
Ferrigno said the three wise men are represented by Berlusconi, the Italian civil protection agency chief Guido Bertolaso and the head of Italy’s tax police school in the town of Coppito, Fabrizio Lisi.
“These three characters did all they could for the drama that struck the city of L’Aquila,” Ferrigno told Adnkronos adding that US president Barack Obama will feature as one of the shepherds.
He was referring to the devastating April earthquake which killed nearly 300 people in the central Italian Abruzzo region surrounding L’Aquila, and left some 50,000 homeless.
According to Ferrigno, the nativity scene will be auctioned and the money will go to charity.