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
In the 1586 edition of Caccia, a MS. copy of which I have before me, the
chapels are given as follows: Adam and Eve, Annunciation, and Santa Casa
di Loreto, Visit of Mary to Elizabeth, Magi, Joseph and Mary worshipping
the Infant Christ, and the Adoration of Shepherds, {62} Circumcision,
Joseph warned to fly, the chapel (but not the figures) of the Massacre of
the Innocents, Flight into Egypt Baptism, Temptation in the Wilderness,
Woman of Samaria, the chapel (but not the figures) of the Healing of the
Paralytic, and the Raising of the Widow’s son at Nain, the Raising of
Lazarus, Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, the Last Supper, Agony in the
Garden, Capture, Flagellation, Crowning with Thorns, Christ carrying His
cross to Calvary (doubtless Tabachetti’s chapel), the Fainting of the
Virgin, the earlier Journey to Calvary by Gaudenzio (now dispersed or
destroyed), Crucifixion, Pietà, Holy Sepulchre, Appearance to Mary
Magdalene (now no longer existing).
I should say, however, that I find it impossible to reconcile the two
accounts of the journeys to Calvary, given in the prose introduction to
this work, and in the poetical description that follows it, or rather to
understand the topography of the poetical version at all, for the prose
account is plain enough. I shall place a MS. copy of the 1586 edition of
Caccia’s book in the British Museum, before this present volume is
published, and will leave other students of Valsesian history to be more
fortunate if they can. Poetical descriptions are so far better than
prose, inasmuch as there is generally less of them in a page, but on the
whole prose has the advantage.
It would be interesting to see the 1565 and 1576 editions of Caccia, and
note the changes and additions that can be found in them. The
differences between the 1586 and 1590 editions (dated 1587 and 1591—the
preface to the second being dated September 25, 1589), are enough to
throw considerable additional light upon the history of the place, and
if, as I believe likely, we find no mention of Tabachetti’s Calvary
chapel in the edition of 1576, nor of his other chapels, we should be
able to date his arrival at Varallo within a very few years, and settle a
question which, until these two editions of Caccia are found, appears
insoluble. I must be myself content with pointing out these _libri
desiderati_ to the future historian.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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