The Adoration of the Shepherds
It stages the scene of the Adoration of the newborn Jesus by the shepherds.
A first group of statues, probably made of wood, already existed in the early sixteenth century. A new group in terracotta was made by Gaudenzio Ferrari, between 1515 and 1517. It included the statues of the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, the child (the latter stolen and replaced at the end of the eighteenth century), the donkey, the ancient wooden statue of the ox and the two central shepherds.
Between 1617 and 1628, the shepherds near the railing and the musician angels were added by Bishop Taverna, to turn the scene from a depiction of the Birth of Jesus into the Adoration of the shepherds. Later, other groups of seventeenth-century wooden angels were added. The frescoes, which depict a stable, are of the late nineteenth century.