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
Near it is the Holy Sepulchre, which is entered from a small cell in
which there is a figure of the Magdalene, and from which the visitor must
creep on hands and knees into the Sepulchre itself. The figure of Christ
is not actually in the Sepulchre, but can be seen through a window
opening into the contiguous chapel, where it is over the altar. The
early writers say that there were also two angels by Gaudenzio (_statue
di Gaudenzio divoissime_), but Bordiga says nothing of this. The upper
part of this building was the abode of Bernardino Caimi and his
successors until the year 1577.
As for the Holy Sepulchre itself it is low and dark, which I have no
doubt is the reason why I have neglected it on the occasions of each of
my two latest visits to Varallo, and thus failed to reach the adjacent
Oratory, which Bordiga says was erected about the year 1702. Fassola and
Torrotti wrote before this date, so that the angels mentioned by them as
by Gaudenzio may have been removed when the present fabric was erected.
At any rate Bordiga speaks as though they were paintings by one Tarquinio
Grassi and not sculptured figures at all. Torrotti says that visitors to
the Holy Sepulchre used to burn candles, tapers, and torches, each one
according to his purse or piety, and that they did this not so much to
see with as to pray. “Here,” he continues, “the great S. Carlo spent his
evenings agreeably” (_spendeva gradevolmente le notti_). “Few,” he
concludes drily, and perhaps with a shade of the same quiet irony that
led the Psalmist to say what he did about “one” day in certain courts,
“can leave it without feeling devoutly thankful.” About the candles
Fassola says that there was a kind of automatic arrangement for getting
them like that whereby we can now buy butter-scotch or matches at the
railway stations, by dropping a penny into a slot. He says:—
“And as the figure of Christ can only be seen by the help of candles
(for which reason all pilgrims whose means permit are accustomed to
burn them, being naturally prompted thereto each one according to his
faith)—by throwing money into a hole wherein the same candles lie,
each pilgrim can be made quite comfortable, and contented.”
[“Gettando il denaro per un buco dove stanno le medesime candelette,
commodamente può restar ogni divoto contento.”]
“The mercies vouchsafed here,” continues the same writer; “are
innumerable—in all parts may be seen votive pictures both old and
recent.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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