Oration in the Garden
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Authors
Giovanni d'Enrico
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
Jesus , Angel , Gethsemane , Capture , Oration , Agony
Alternative Title
Abstract
This structure was built in 1776 as part of the building that was designed by Matteo Massone to house Chapels Twenty and Twenty-One. It came to be called the Casa Parella after Marchesa Severina San Martino Parella, who funded the addition of a second story in 1816. The Oration in the Garden had been included among the chapels since Bernardino Caimi's earliest plans for the Sacro Monte at Varallo. Because of his focus on recreating the geography of the Holy Land, this scene was grouped with two others that were set in the Garden of Gethsemane: The Capture of Christ and The Tomb of the Virgin Mary. They were originally located on the western edge of the site, on the steep cliff now occupied by the complex called Pilate's Palace. The second iteration of the Oration chapel was constructed sometime after Giovanni d'Enrico was put in charge of the Fabbrica in 1602. Galeazzo Alessi had proposed moving the Oration and the Capture to the other side of the Sacro Monte, south of the Bethlehem Complex and on or behind the current site of the Basilica. Henrico van Schoell's etching of the Nuova Hierusalemme (c. 1606 - 1609), however, seems to show Chapels Twenty through Twenty-Four in roughly the same positions they occupy today. D'Enrico also modeled the two terracotta figures that were placed in the chapel between 1604 and 1608, and his brother Melchiorre d'Enrico painted the frescoes around the same time. The pair of wooden sculptures from the original chapel have since been lost. They were made by an unknown artist around the turn of the sixteenth century and are described as complete in the first guidebook to Varallo, which was published in 1514. D'Enrico 's figures were moved into the current chapel when the portico of the Casa Parella was finished in 1776. It seems that great care was taken to preserve d'Enrico's composition, which is recorded in a print from the first illustrated guidebook to Varallo (1611). Giovanni Battista Bernero, who was then court sculptor for the House of Savoy, also added a sculpture of San Carlo Borromeo at Prayer in a niche to the left of the group in 1776. This statue replaced a painted image of the saint that Bishop Carlo Bascapè had instructed the d'Enrico brothers to include in their chapel in 1604. San Carlo's biographers emphasized his strong devotion to the Sacro Monte, naming this and The Holy Sepulcher as his two favorite chapels. Between 1778 and 1779 Giovanni Antonio Orgiazzi the Elder (1725 or 1730 - c. 1790) repainted the seventeenth-century figures and painted new frescoes for the background. The gilding was reapplied by Maurizio Antonini in 1820, and the decorations were repainted again by Carlo Giuseppe Delzanno in 1850. Stefania Stefani Perrone records that the figures' hair and beards were replenished during restoration campaign that took place in 1974, and the sculptures were treated again 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), 63 - 64, 68 - 73 and Plans 1, 5 -7; Samuel Butler, Ex Voto: An Account of The Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia (London: Tübner & Co., 1888), 163 - 164; Gaudenzio Bordiga, Storia e guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Caligaris, 1830), 57 - 58; Girolamo Cattaneo, Guida per ben vistare la nuova Gerusalemme nel Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Calligaris, 1826), 47- 48; Elena De Filippis, Guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Borgosesia: Tipolitografia di Borgosesia, 2009), 84 - 85; 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), 66 - 67 and 75 - 77; Stefania Stefani Perrone, Guida al Sacro Monte di Varallo (Torino: Kosmos Edizioni, 1995), 55 - 56; Geoffrey Symcox, Jerusalem in the Alps: The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019), 146.