Christ wakes the Sleeping Disciples
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Authors
Giovanni d'Enrico
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
Jesus , Disciples , Gethsemane , Capture , Oration , Agony
Alternative Title
Abstract
The history of this chapel is closely tied to that of its predecessor, The Oration in the Garden, which was part of Bernardino Caimi's earliest plans for the Sacro Monte of Varallo. Caimi had grouped all the chapels that were set in Gethsemane and the Valley of Jehoshaphat together along the western edge of the precipice overlooking the Val Sesia, including The Oration in the Garden, The Tomb of the Virgin Mary, and The Tomb of Anna and Joachim, her parents. Only the chapel of Mary's tomb survives, although it is not accessible to modern visitors. The other two were demolished around the turn of the Seicento to make way for a new complex known as Pilate's Palace, which was designed by Giovanni d'Enrico and Bartolomeo Ravelli. Work on the new Palace began almost as soon as Carlo Bascapè had appointed d'Enrico to direct the Fabbrica in 1602 and the two new Gethsemane chapels were built shortly thereafter. The wooden figures that had populated the original chapels have since been lost, with the possible exception of the Madonna Dormiente (c. 1491 - 1498) from The Tomb of the Virgin, which is attributed to Gaudenzio Ferrari and is currently housed in the crypt of the Basilica. Henrico van Schoell's etching of Varallo (c. 1606 - 1609) shows Chapels Twenty-One and Twenty-Two in roughly the same locations where they are found today. Usually, images of The Oration in the Garden include Christ praying, the angel, and the three sleeping disciples together in the same scene. This is true, for example, of Gaudenzio Ferrari's depiction in the Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie (1513) at the foot of the Sacro Monte, which surely influenced the composition of the figures in this chapel. Galeazzo Alessi had proposed a new location and design for the chapel in the fifteen-sixties, but his drawing of the Oration scene also shows the disciples asleep in the foreground. It is not clear why Giovanni d'Enrico chose to divide this narrative into two separate scenes. He modeled the four terracotta figures inside Chapel Twenty-Two between 1605 and 1606. Melchiorre d'Enrico, Giovanni's brother, painted the sculptures and the frescoes behind them a few years later (c. 1608 - 1612). Their work was funded by Count Pio Giacomo Fassola of Rassa, a town farther west along the Val Sesia, who was an ancestor of Giovanni Battista Fassola, the author of one of Varallo's early guidebooks (La Nuova Gerusalemme, 1671). The Casa Parella was built in 1776, replacing or encompassing chapels Twenty and Twenty-One. Marchesa Severina San Martino Parella funded the addition of a second story in 1816, which included a private apartment and gave the building its name. Chapel Twenty-Two became part of the Casa Parella in 1863 when the building was expanded again and the portico was added thanks to a donation from the Paravia Vigliari family. Samuel Butler recounts that the custodian he met at Varallo had worked on this project twenty years earlier and showed him the remaining traces of Melchiorre's frescoes that had since become part of the second story. In 1865, Paolo Emilio Morgari (1815 - 1882) painted new frescoes to accompany Giovanni d'Enrico's sculptural group. Morgari worked for the House of Savoy and received commissions at large churches throughout Piedmont, including the Cathedral of Mondovì, because of his connections at court. Chapel Twenty-Two was restored in 1993. / Varallo was the first Sacro Monte in Northern Italy. The collection of chapels on the hilltop overlooking Varallo was established by Bernardino Caimi (before 1450 - 1499 or 1500) as a way of recreating the sights and experiences of a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He organized the chapels according to their Holy Land geography and incorporated architectural details from the pilgrimage churches corresponding to each scene. Caimi chose Varallo to be the site of his New Jerusalem in 1481, he received papal permission to begin collecting donations in 1486, and he is believed to have overseen the project from 1491, when the first chapel was finished, until his death. Different writers have counted each of these dates as the year of the Sacro Monte founding. Many of the early chapels were decorated by Gaudenzio Ferrari (c. 1480 - 1546), who was born nearby and gained a reputation during his lifetime as one of the leading painters in Lombardy. Saint Carlo Borromeo (1538 - 1584) visited the Sacro Monte multiple times while he was Archbishop of Milan (1564 - 1584). Carlo and his contemporaries implemented new policies to clarify Catholic doctrine and structure spiritual practices in Milan after the Council of Trent (1545 - 1563). Carlo Bascapè (1550 - 1615), Saint Carlo's close friend and the Bishop of Novara, personally oversaw a building campaign to reorganize the chapels at Varallo and restructure the pilgrimage experience according to the ideals of the Counter-Reformation. These changes were largely based on designs by Galeazzo Alessi (1512 - 1572), which are collected and preserved in a manuscript called the Libro dei Misteri (1565 - 1569) in Varallo's Biblioteca Civica. Construction continued throughout the first half of the seventeenth-century, led primarily by Giovanni d'Enrico the Younger (c. 1559 - 1644) and his family workshop. Beginning in 1609, d'Enrico also supervised the construction of the new Basilica, which is dedicated to the Assumption of the Virgin. The Basilica was consecrated in 1649 and the old church, or Chiesa Vecchia, was demolished in 1773, but the Chiesa Nuova was not finished until the façade was added in 1891 - 1896.
Description
Sacro Monte, Varallo
Citation
Galeazzo Alessi, Libro dei misteri: Progetto di pianificazione urbanistica, architettonica e figurativa del Sacro Monte di Varallo (1565 - 1569). Stefania Stefani Perrone ed., (Bologna: Fracesco de Franceschi, 1974), Vol. I 63 - 64, 68 - 73, Plans 1, 5 -7 and Vol II. Folio 173; Samuel Butler, Ex Voto: An Account of The Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia (London: Tübner & Co., 1888), 164 - 165; Gaudenzio Bordiga, Storia e guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Caligaris, 1830), 58 - 59; Girolamo Cattaneo, Guida per ben vistare la nuova Gerusalemme nel Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Calligaris, 1826), 49- 50; Elena De Filippis, Guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Borgosesia: Tipolitografia di Borgosesia, 2009), 86 - 87; Giovanni Giacomo Ferrari. Brevi considerazioni Sopra i Misteri del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Pietro Revelli, 1611), unpaginated; Tomasso Nanni. Dialogo sopra i Misteri del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Pietro Revelli, 1616), unpaginated; Stefania Stefani Perrone, ed., Questi sono li Misteri che sono sopra el Monte de Varalle (in una 'Guida' poetica del 1514) (Borgosesia: Valsesia Editrice, 1987), 75 - 77; Stefania Stefani Perrone, Guida al Sacro Monte di Varallo (Torino: Kosmos Edizioni, 1995), 56; Geoffrey Symcox, Jerusalem in the Alps: The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019), 146.