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
The statues are of no great interest, and of unknown authorship. The
frescoes are by Orazio Gallinone di Treviglio, but they are not striking.
The date of the chapel is about 1585. It is mentioned in the 1586
edition of Caccia, and it is added that the water of the fountain would
be brought there shortly so as to imitate the Jordan. This was done, but
the water made the chapel so damp that it was turned off again. The
graces, according to Fassola, are chiefly for married ladies.
CHAPEL NO. 13. TEMPTATION.
This chapel is given as completed in the 1586 edition of Caccia, and had
probably been by this time reconstructed by Tabachetti, to whom the work
is universally and no doubt justly ascribed.
[Picture: Plate No. VI. The Temptation in the Wilderness. By Tabchetti]
That the figures of Christ and of the devil have both been cut about may
be conjectured from their draperies being in part real linen or calico,
and not terra-cotta; Christ’s red shirt front is real, as also is a great
part of the devil’s dress. This last personage is a most
respectable-looking patriarchal old Jewish Rabbi. I should say he was
the leading solicitor in some such town as Samaria, and that he gave an
annual tea to the choir. He is offering Christ some stones just as any
other respectable person might do, and if it were not for his formidable
two clawed feet there would be nothing to betray his real nature. The
beasts with their young are excellent. The porcupine has real quills.
The fresco background is by Melchior D’Enrico, and here the fall of the
devil when the whole is over is treated with a realistic unreserve little
likely to be repeated. He is dreadfully unwell. The graces in this
chapel are more especially for those tempted by the world, the flesh, and
the devil, for people who are bewitched, and for those who are in any
wise troubled in mind, body, and estate, “as the varying views of the
pilgrims themselves will best determine.”
Bordiga says that the chapel was begun about 1580, and completed in 1594,
but he refers probably to Tabachetti’s reconstruction, for in the portico
there is an inscription painted by order of the Bishop, and forbidding
visitors to deface the walls, that is dated 1524, and the back of the
chapel has many early 16th century scratches.
CHAPEL NO. 14. THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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