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 — John Shaqi
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
At S. Carlo’s instance Pellegrino Pellegrini, called Tibaldi, made a new
design for the Sacro Monte, which was happily never carried out, but
which I am told involved the destruction of many of the earlier chapels.
He made the plan of the Sacro Monte as it stood in his time, which I have
already referred to, and designed the many chapels mentioned in the 1586
edition of Caccia as about to be built. Prominent among these was the
Temple of Solomon, which was to involve “_una spesa grandissima_,” and
was to be as like the real temple as it could be made. Inside it were to
be groups of figures representing Christ driving out those that bought
and sold, and it was to have a magnificent marble portico.
The Palazzo di Pilato, which, as the name denotes, is devoted to the
sufferings of Christ under Pontius Pilate, was actually carried out,
though not till some years after S. Carlo’s death, and not according to
Pellegrini’s design. It is most probable that the designer of the
Palazzo di Pilato, and of the Caiaphas and Herod chapels as we now see
them, was Giovanni d’Enrico. “It was in 1608,” says Bordiga, {66}
writing of the Santa Scala, which leads from the Crowning with Thorns to
the Ecce Homo chapels, and which, one would say, must have been one of
the first things done when the Palazzo di Pilato was made, “that this
work with its steps, exactly twenty-eight in number, was begun, according
to the design obtained from Rome by Francesco Testa, who was then
Fabbriciere. This is for the information of those who think it is the
work of Pellegrini.”
Between this year and 1645 the four Pilate chapels, the Ecce Homo,
Caiaphas, Herod, present Pietà, Sleeping Apostles, Agony in the Garden,
and Christ Nailed to the Cross chapels were either created or
reconstructed. These works bear d’Enrico’s name in the guide-books, and
he no doubt presided over the work that was done in them; but I should
say that by far the greater number of the figures in them are by Giacomo
Ferro, his assistant, to whom I will return presently, or by other pupils
and assistants. Only one chapel, the Transfiguration, belongs to the
second half of the seventeenth century, and one, the Christ before Annas,
to the eighteenth (1765); one—the present Entombment—belongs to the
nineteenth, and one or two have been destroyed, as has been unfortunately
the case with the Chiesa Vecchia; but the plan of the Sacro Monte in
1671, which I here give, will show that it was not much different then
from what it is at present. The numbers on the chapels are explained as
follows:—
1. Gate.
2. Creation of the world and Adam and Eve.
3. Annunciation.
4. Salutation.
5. First vision of St. Joseph.
6. Magi.
7. Nativity.
8. Circumcision.
9. Second vision of St. Joseph.
10. Flight into Egypt.
11. Massacre of the Innocents.
12. Baptism.
13. Temptation.
14. Woman of Samaria.
15. Healing the Paralytic.
16. Widow’s son at Nain.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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