Vision of the Cross
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Authors
Dionigi Bussola and Giovanni Battista de Magistris (il Volpino)
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
Jesus , Virgin Mary , St. Joseph , Vision , Cross , Angels
Alternative Title
Abstract
This is the third of three sculptural groups that Dionigi Bussola and Giovanni Battista de Magistris (il Volpino) modeled for the interior of the sanctuary at Domodossola, but it is not counted as one of the Sacro Monte's numbered chapels. There is some confusion about when the sculptures were made, but they likely date either to c. 1663 - 1664 or c. 1680 - 1683. At that time, the chapel was intended to represent the Adoration of the Magi, but Pietro Prada, a Rosminian priest who lived at Domodossola in the 1890s, believed that group was left unfinished after the deaths of both the Sacro Monte's first promoter and its lead artist (Giovanni Matteo Capis died in 1681 and Dionigi Bussola in 1687), which prompted the change in theme. This timeline suggests that the sculptures date to the later period of Bussola's work at Domodossola. Giuseppe Rusnati arrived at the Monte Calvario in the first few years of the eighteenth-century and seems to have been charged with completing the project. It is likely that he wanted to finish Bussola's chapel as quickly as possible in order to focus his energies on the other chapels that he was designing ex novo. Only one figure had to be removed to change the subject of this chapel to The Vision of the Cross, which still fit well with the painted background that Giovanni Sampietro had finished just a few years before (in 1699 or 1703). The frescoes depict a barn, shepherds, and a retreating caravan of riders in stereotypically eastern garb. Rusnati moved Bussola's surviving magus into his Chapel of the Resurrection around 1704 and the chapel in the sanctuary was deemed complete. The magus is said to be a portrait of Kaspar, or Gaspare, Stockpaler (1609 - 1691) a Swiss merchant who was forced to live in exile at the Monte Calvario from 1681 to 1685 and became an important patron of the site. / The Sacro Monte, or Monte Calvario, of Domodossola was founded by two friars from the local Capuchin convent, Gioacchino da Cassano and Andrea da Rho. In 1656, they planted a large cross atop the ruins of the medieval fortress that had previously occupied the site and began building the sanctuary on top of the hill in July of the following year. This was the first Sacro Monte dedicated to the Via Crucis, or the Stations of the Cross. Early construction efforts were led and funded by Giovanni Matteo Capis (1617 - 1681) a wealthy merchant who had previously served as the mayor of Domodossola, the director of its hospital, and a leader in the local inquisition.
Description
Sacro Monte Calvario, Domodossola
Citation
Tullio Bertamini and Carlo Pessina, Il Sacro Monte Calvario di Domodossola (Ornavasso: Tipografia Saccardo Carlo & Figli, 2000), 89 - 93; Franco Caresio, I Sacri Monti del Piemonte (Turin: Editurist, 1989), 246 - 260; Guido Gentile, Sacri Monti (Torino: Einaudi, 2019), 355 - 361; Santino Langé, Sacri Monti Piemontsi e Lombardi (Milano: Tamburini Editore, 1967), 41 - 42; Enrico Massone Ed., Sacri Monte in Piemonte: Itinerari nelle aree protete di Belmonte, Crea, Domodossola, Ghiffa, Orta, Varallo (Torino: Kosmos, 1994), 67 - 87; Angelo Marzi, Guida al Sacro Monte Calvario di Domodossola (Torino: Kosmos Edizioni, 1995), 32; Simonetta Minissale and Alessandro Feltre, eds., Calvario: Monte Sacro di Domodossola (Torino: Umberto Allemandi & Co., 2009), 82 - 85; Pietro Prada, Domodossola e il Monte Calvario (Milano: Tip. Edit, L.F. Cogliati, 1897), 39 - 40, 113, 119, 132 - 134, 146 - 147, 150; Geoffrey Symcox, Jerusalem in the Alps: The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy (Turnhout: Brepolis, 2019), 242 - 246; Luigi Zanzi and Paolo Zanzi Eds., Atlante dei Sacri Monti prealpini (Milan: Skira, 2002), 84.