Holy Sepulcher
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Authors
Unknown and Gaudenzio Ferrari
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
Jesus , Sepulcher , Tomb , Angels , Shroud , Resurrection
Alternative Title
Abstract
This is the oldest chapel on the Sacro Monte. Its construction was funded and overseen by Milano Scarognini, a banker and magistrate from Varallo. Work on the chapel began on October 7, 1491. That date and Scarognini's involvement are commemorated in a stone inscription above the entrance to the chapel. Niches on either side of the doorway contain relics of Varallo's founder, Bernardino Caimi. His skull is displayed on the left of the portal, and a stone he brought back from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem is on the right. Both objects are identified with Latin text on a plaque beneath the niches. Another niche holds a terracotta statue of Caimi holding a model of the Sacro Monte. Giovanni d'Enrico modeled the half-sized figure around 1638, and it was commissioned by one of Caimi's relatives. The chapel itself was built to reproduce the Chapel, or Aedicule, of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Both structures are divided into two small rooms and accessed via small doors that force visitors to crouch or bow as they enter the space. The inner doorway bears an inscription over the lintel, assuring pilgrims: "this is the same as the Sepulcher of Jesus Christ." At the church of the Holy Sepulcher, the first room is called Chapel of the Angel, because it was the place where Mary Magdalene spoke with the angel that told her of Jesus' resurrection. At Varallo, the semi-circular chamber contains a sculpture of Mary Magdalene to illustrate this narrative. The figure is attributed to Gaudenzio Ferrari and dated to the first decade of the Cinquecento, when Gaudenzio is also believed to have carved the figures of Mary and Gabriel that are currently housed in Varallo's Annunciation Chapel (Chapel Two). Like those works, this sculpture is slightly smaller than life-sized (104 cm tall) and made of wood. In 2018, conservators discovered mobile knee and elbow joints under the tunic and cloak that covered the figure, which were made of real cloth stiffened with gesso. These garments date to 1831, when Cardinal Giuseppe Morozzo della Rocca (1758 - 1842), then Bishop of Novara, instructed the Fabbricieri to make new clothes for the Magdalene. Only the exposed parts of the figure, her head and hands, are carved in detail and finished with paint. Early writers including Francesco Torrotti, Giovanni Battista Fassola, and Michele Cusa suggest that there was originally another sculpture of an angel sitting on a rock inside this room. Tottotti says that there were originally two more sculpted angels by Gaudenzio Ferrari in the second portion of this chapel. Bordiga adds that they held copies of the Holy Nails and the Crown of Thorns for pilgrims to contemplate. The angels and the relics they hold are clearly represented in the earliest images of the scene, which were designed by Joachim Dietrich Coriolanus (1590 - 1628) for Giovanni Giacomo Ferrari's Brevi considerazioni Sopra i Misteri del Sacro Monte di Varallo (1611). The focal point of this small rectangular room is a life-sized sculpture of Jesus on a raised platform that occupies the entire length of the chapel. It has jointed shoulders, so that the figure's arms could be raised and lowered as part of dramatic rituals or Passion plays during Holy Week. Elena de Filippis suggests that the work is stylistically similar to the group (1486 - c. 1493) by the brothers Giovanni Pietro De Donati and Giovanni Ambrogio De Donati, which is currently housed in the Pinacoteca di Varallo (formerly Chapel Forty-One). In the nineteenth century a white cloth was draped over the figure, but it is not clear when this shroud became part of the scene or when it was removed. Above the chapel, on the second floor, there were several small rooms that housed the Observant Franciscans until their monastery behind the Old Church was finished. They used the rooms until 1577, according to Samuel Butler, and then pilgrims stayed in this Hermitage. It was demolished at the end of the Seicento to make was for the Oratory, which was built onto the side of Chapel Forty-Three between 1699 and 1702. Stefania Stefani Perrone attributes the building's design and construction to Father Giovan Battista Borello of nearby Grignasco. The builders installed a marble floor from the original Last Supper Chapel and added a window beside the tomb so that the statue of Christ would be visible above the altar in the new space. Two doors were cut in the chapel's northern wall, allowing visitors to circulate through the oratory before leaving through the entrance of the chapel. There was no way to enter the Oratory directly until 1945. It was frescoed by a local artist from Romagnano Sesia, Tarquinio Grassi (1656 - 1733) between 1701 and 1702. He also painted three scenes of the Deposition and Pietà for the space on canvas in 1707. The Oratory's fourth painting is another Deposition attributed to Antonio Lucini (active 1700 - 1741) from Milan. Two local brothers, Carlo and Franco Bacchetta from Valsesia, renovated the Oratory and painted new frescoes in Chapel Forty-Three in 1945 -1946. They added a new door from the Oratory onto the Piazza, installed marble flooring in the chapel, enlarged the Magdalene's niche, restored the figures, and modified Christ's tomb somewhat, according to Perrone. In 1947, the Fabbrica built a new altar in the baroque style of the Oratory. Between 2005 and 2007 the statue of Christ was restored and reinstalled in a sealed case to protect it from the elements. The large stone set into the wall outside the door to the chapel, with the plaque asserting that it is "in tutto simile a quella con quale fu coperta il sepolcro del nostro signore," was originally located in the scene of Christ's burial (currently Chapel Forty-One) during Bernardino Caimi's lifetime. It represents the Unction Stone on which Christ's body was prepared for burial. The original relic is housed in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, which, according to Casimiro Debiaggi, may account for the confusion. For a more thorough account of this issue, please see the entries for Chapel Forty-One or the Lamentation by Giovanni and Pietro De Donati at the Pinacoteca di Varallo. / 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
Giovanni Agosti and Jacopo Stoppa, Il Rinascimento di Gaudenzio Ferrari (Milan: Officina Libraria, 2018), 140 - 143; Jonathan Bober, "Storia e storiografia del Sacro Monte di Varallo. Osservazioni sulla 'prima pietra' del S. Sepolcro," Novarien, Vol. 18, No. 14 (1984) 3 - 18; Samuel Butler, Ex Voto: An Account of The Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia (London: Tübner & Co., 1888), 230 - 232; Gaudenzio Bordiga, Storia e guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Caligaris, 1830), 90 - 92; Girolamo Cattaneo, Guida per ben vistare la nuova Gerusalemme nel Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Calligaris, 1826), 94 - 97; Michele Cusa, Il Sacro Monte di Varallo (Vercelli: De Gaudenzi, 1858), 105; Casimiro Debiaggi, "La preistoria del Sacro Monte di Varallo testimoniata da un resto archeologico," Bollettino storico per la provincia di Novara, Vol. 68, No. 1 (1977), 95 - 107; Casimiro Debiaggi, Dizionario degli artisti valsesiani dal secolo XIV al XX (Varallo: Società conservazione opere arte monumenti Valsesia, 1968), 87 - 89; Elena De Filippis, Guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Borgosesia: Tipolitografia di Borgosesia, 2009), 132 - 133; 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, Guida al Sacro Monte di Varallo (Torino: Kosmos Edizioni, 1995), 79 - 81; 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), 90 - 95; Francesco Torrotti, Historia della Nuova Gierusalemme: Il Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Unknown, 1686), 90 - 91; Geoffrey Symcox, Jerusalem in the Alps: The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019), 49 - 57.