Designing a Byzantine fold-out Creche Windows into a spiritual world Click on the top image at left to see the original icon Icons represent a priceless legacy of Byzantium's cultural and artistic history. Surviving masterpieces of the era (like the fine Russian icon shown at left) are examples of the flowering of iconography that followed. Due to the ravages of time, sometimes they can only hint at the treasures that have been lost. One example is the Gospel of Kinkephoros Phokas, part of the collection of the Monastery of the Great Lvra at Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain. It contains superb exmaples of Byzantine iconography including The Nativity shown at left. What a rare art it was! It is difficult to imagine how it was possible for the iconographer's hand, however gifted and isnpired, to define, in two-dimensional space on a wall, a piece of wood, or a canvas, the indefinable spiritual sphere intersecting that of earth. That is exactly what is accompolished in an image that pictures the words of the Gospels of Luke and Matthew describing the miracle that unfolded in the hills of Judaea. Adapting The Nativity to a three-dimensional fold-out creche? I am sure someone more gifted would have done this beautiful icon more justice. Nevertheless, my attempt follows step-by-step. A Byzantine icon becomes a creche: run your mouse over the image above to see the original icon. The Byzantine creche seen in a perspective view that emphasizes its seven planes.