The Chapel of the Nativity is the third from the left to be admired in the Royal Church of San Lorenzo in Turin. It was entirely designed by the great architect Guarino Guarini, among the greatest exponents of Baroque architecture, while the altar is due to his fellow Luganese Antonio Bettini, who made it in 1677. The altar of the Nativity houses an altarpiece depicting the Nativity, a work by Pietro Dufour dating back to the late 17th century, while statues of St. John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene are housed in the side niches.
Bettini imagined the altar as a rather exuberant structure characterized by the use of polychrome marbles of various origins (thus not only Piedmontese marbles, but also Tuscan marbles), on which yellow marble from Frabosa and seravezza marble from Moncervetto stand out.