Ex Voto: An Account of the Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia: With Some Notice of Tabachetti's Remaining Work at the Sanctuary of CreaButler, Samuel
Religion
Ex Voto: An Account of the Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia: With Some Notice of Tabachetti's Remaining Work at the Sanctuary of Crea
Butler, Samuel
Art -- Italy -- Varallo-Sesia; Sacro Monte di Varallo (Sanctuary); Tabaguet, Jean Baptiste, 1568 -1615
Seguito da Maria e da l’amato
Discepolo di lui, et è l’effetto
Sculto si bene e doitamente fatto
Che sembra vero e non del ver ritratto.”
“Per una scala asceso al Sacro Monte
Si entra nel più d’ogn’ altro sacro tempio,” &c.
The words “_montando il monte poi_,” &c., must refer to a supposed ascent
on the part of Christ Himself, for Gaudenzio’s work was on a level with
Tabachetti’s present Journey to Calvary which Caccia has just described,
and Caccia goes on to say that from Gaudenzio’s chapel (the present
Pietà) one “ascends by a staircase to” the most sacred chapel of all—the
Crucifixion—as one does at present. That the present Pietà and the
adjacent Entombment chapels were once one chapel, may be seen by any one
who examines the vaulting inside the first-named chapel. Signor Arienta
pointed this out to me, and at the same time called my attention to the
fact that Gaudenzio’s fresco on the wall facing the spectator does not
turn the corner and join on with the subject that fills the left-hand
wall. A flag and a horse are cut off, and the rest of them is not seen.
I sometimes question whether the original wooden-figured entombment was
in the chapel in which the present modern figures are seen, but it
probably was so.
There was also a fainting Madonna mentioned in the prose part of Caccia
as a work by itself and described as follows:—
“Come la Madonna è tramortita vedendo N.S. condotto à morte.”
This is not referred to in the poetical part, and must have been a mere
cell occupied by a single figure. No doubt it was seen through the
window that is still approached by two steps on the south side of the
present Pietà, and the space it occupied has been thrown into the present
work.
I do not know when Gaudenzio’s Journey to Calvary was dispersed, but it
was some time, doubtless, between 1600 and 1644. It is puzzling to note
that the Pietà appears in the plan of 1671 as situated rather in the part
of the building now occupied by the Entombment than by the Pietà, while
the 39 that should mark the site of the Entombment does not appear; but
this is perhaps only an error in the plan itself. I find, however, the
attempt to understand the changes that have taken place here so difficult
that I shall abandon it and will return to the present aspect of the
work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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