The figure of Santa Claus is inspired in the religious sphere by the figure of Saint Nicholas, protector of children.
This is because it is said that during the celebrations in his honor the inhabitants of Myra, where he lived, were attacked by pirates who kidnapped a young man named Basil. The boy became the emir’s personal slave, but Saint Nicholas helped him to flee and return to Myra with the emir’s golden chalice with him.
Another famous legend tells that Saint Nicholas gave sacks of gold to three poor girls so that they could marry instead of prostitution: for three nights Nicholas threw them through the window.
Finally it is also said that one night three children asked for hospitality in an inn. The innkeeper and his wife welcomed them, but then they killed them and kept them in brine to eat. At that time Saint Nicholas knocked at the door of the inn and asked for meat, the innkeeper refused but the saint went where the brine was and from there extracted alive and well the three young people.
Saint Nicholas had a long beard and wore a red tunic, He was persecuted by the emperor Diocletian and later pardoned by the emperor Constantine. He died at Myra on 6 December 343.
Tradition has it that in many countries it is St Nicholas who still bears the gifts on 6 December.
One of the first traces of Santa Claus detached from religion appeared, in 1809, in the History of New York of Washington Irving that tells that the Dutch had relied on the protection of a certain Saint Nicholas, A kind of elf that would go around in a flying wagon and come down from the chimneys to leave gifts for the children.
This image of Santa Claus then developed more and more in the following years.
We have to wait until the end of the nineteenth century to see the first illustrations of Santa Claus as we know him thanks to the cartoons and illustrations of Thomas Nast.
This image was then used globally by Coca Cola for its Christmas commercials. In 1931, in order to circumvent a law that prohibited, because of the content of caffeine, the use of advertising images depicting children under 12 years, the multinational company of Atalanta decided to use the figure of Santa Claus to advertise Coca-Cola.
Sara De Luca 4N
