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
This chapel is in the Palazzo di Pilato block, though not strictly a
suffering under Pontius Pilate. The greater number of the sixteen
figures that it contains are old, and of wood, and among these are the
figures of Christ, Judas, and Malchus, who is lying on the ground. To
show how dust and dirt accumulate in the course of centuries, I may say
that Cav. Prof. Antonini told me he had himself unburied the figure of
Malchus, which he found more than half covered with earth. We have seen
that there are also two figures introduced here which had no connection
with the original chapel, I mean of course the old Adam and Eve, who are
now doing duty as Roman soldiers. The few remaining figures that are not
of wood are given to D’Enrico, and the frescoes are by his brother
Melchiorre. Neither figures nor frescoes can be highly praised. The
present chapel is not on the site of the old, which I have already
explained was on the ground floor of the large house on the visitor’s
left as he enters the smaller entrance to the Sacro Monte.
The servants were put to lodge above this old and now derelict Capture
chapel when the present one was made. The date of the removal is given
by Cusa as 1570, who says that the Marchese del Guasto contributed
largely to the expense. If the figures were then completed and arranged
as we now see them, Giovanni D’Enrico can have had no hand in them, but
it is quite possible that somewhere about 1615–1619, they were again
rearranged and perhaps added to. Melchiorre D’Enrico has signed the
frescoes in a quasi-cipher and dated them 1619. The old chapel, though,
I think, originally larger than it now is, could not have contained all
or nearly all the present figures. Any second rearrangement of the
chapel may have been due to its incorporation in the Palazzo di Pilato
block, which we know was not begun till after 1590. That the removal
from the original chapel had been effected before 1586 is shown by the
fact that the chapel is given in its present geographical sequence in the
edition of Caccia published at the end of that year. The work contains
no trace of Tabachetti’s hand, and this should make us incline towards
thinking that. Tabachetti had not yet come to Varallo by 1570.
Of the former chapel Fassola says:—
“On again descending where formerly was the Capture of Christ, and
near the exit [from the Sacro Monte] we came to the porter’s lodge.
It should be noted that under the porter’s room, in the place where
the Capture used to be, there are most admirable frescoes by
Gaudenzio” (p. 22).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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