Saint Francis Renounces his Worldly Goods
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Authors
Cristoforo Prestinari
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
St. Francis , Conversion , Bishop , Humility , Poverty
Alternative Title
Abstract
Construction of this chapel began in 1596 and was entirely funded by Carlo Bascapè, the Bishop of Novara. Inside, the tableau shows Saint Francis renouncing his claim to inherit his father's wealth and worldly goods before the Bishop of Assisi, who is imagined as a portrait of Bascapè. Cristoforo Prestinari (1573 - 1623) worked on these sculptures between 1604 and 1608. The Bishop was involved in every part of the chapel's development, which was among the first built at Orta. He commissioned the brothers Giovanni Battista della Rovere (1561 - c. 1633) and Giovanni Mauro della Rovere (1575 - 1640) for the interior frescoes and gave them specific instructions about which subjects from the life of Saint Francis to include. The painters, called I Fiammenghini by their contemporaries, continued working on this chapel until at least 1613. Francis is shown kneeling before the bishop wearing nothing but a hair shirt. The saint's father had wanted the him to stop giving so much of the family's wealth to those in need, so Francis publicly rejected his inheritance including the clothes that his father had given him. This gesture was particularly significant because Francis' father was a silk merchant. A manuscript written to train the local friars guiding visitors around Orta's chapels (c. 1686) describes that "Francis removed all his clothes and threw them before his father." Prestinari sculpted the figure of Saint Francis without any clothes, but it seems that someone, perhaps Bascapè himself, may have found this narrative detail indecent although many Franciscans practiced holy nakedness in imitation of Saint Francis. Sometime after the sculpture was installed, the saint's torso was covered by a painted hair-shirt. / Orta is the second oldest Sacro Monte. Construction began on the chapels there in 1591, just over a hundred years after the first Sacro Monte site was established at nearby Varallo. A community of Capuchin friars lived on the mountain, oversaw construction, and guided visitors on their pilgrimages once the chapels were finished. One of the brothers, Cleto da Castelletto Ticino (1556 - 1619) designed a series of thirty-six mysteries for the site, although only twenty chapels were ever completed. Before joining the Capuchin Order, Cleto had trained as an architect and engineer. After construction began at Orta, he also worked alongside Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527 - 1596), one of Carlo Borromeo's favorite architects. Amico Canobio (1532 - 1592), a Benedictine Abbot and Commissioner of the secular lands within the diocese of Novara, oversaw Cleto's work and was the first major patron of the chapels at Orta. Carlo Bascapè (1550 - 1615) took charge of directing the progress at Orta as soon he was named Bishop of Novara in 1593, the year after Canobio's death.
Description
Sacro Monte, Orta
Citation
Elena De Filippis and Fiorella Mattioli Carcano, Guida al Sacro di Orta (Omegna & Novara: Litotipografica Editoriale Gianni Fovana & Ente gestione riserve naturali speciali del Sacro Monte di Orta del Monte Mesma e del Colle della Torredi Buccione, 2001), 17 - 19; Guido Gentile, Sacri Monti (Torino: Einaudi, 2019), 271 - 290; Cynthia Ho, Kathleen Peters, and John McClain, Sacred Views of Saint Francis: The Sacro Monte di Orta (Santa Barbara: Punctum Books, 2020), 62 - 64; Santino Langé, Sacri Monti Piemontsi e Lombardi (Milano: Tamburini Editore, 1967), 20 - 25; Pier Giorgio Longo, Antiche guide del Sacro Monte di Orta (tra XVII e XVIII secolo) (Novara: Italgrafica slr & Ente gestione riserve naturali speciali del Sacro Monte di Orta del Monte Mesma e del Colle della Torredi Buccione, 2008), 80 - 83 & 154 - 157; Father Angelo Maria Manzini, Sacro Monte di Orta. (Milan: Tipolito Testori, 2006), 26 - 27; Enrico Massone Ed., Sacri Monte in Piemonte: Itinerari nelle aree protete di Belmonte, Crea, Domodossola, Ghiffa, Orta, Varallo (Torino: Kosmos, 1994), 105 - 127; Geoffrey Symcox, Jerusalem in the Alps: The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy (Turnhout: Brepolis, 2019), 207 - 218; Luigi Zanzi and Paolo Zanzi Eds., Atlante dei Sacri Monti prealpini (Milan: Skira, 2002), 94 - 95.