Christ crowned with the Crown of Thorns
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Authors
Agostino Silva
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
Jesus , Crown , Thorns , Crowning , Soldiers , Passion
Alternative Title
Abstract
The chapel was built in 1666 and funded by the Gilardone family from Volesio. Tommaso Gilardone also patronized Chapel Seven at Ossuccio a few years later, but it is unclear whether he or another family member donated to Chapel Eight. Unlike at the previous chapel, there is no coat of arms on display here to commemorate the Gilardone patronage. The six terracotta sculptures inside are about three-quarters live-sized. They were modeled by Agostino Silva in 1667. This seems to be the only chapel at Ossuccio in which Silva signed and dated his work. His signature is visible on the first pilaster to the viewer's right along with the initials of Carlo Gaffuri (dates unknown), who painted the frescoes in 1667. Gaffuri's initials are somewhat obscured by a pinkish layer of paint and another signature, recording that the chapel was restored in August of 1935 by "S. [Silvestro] Marmori and son [or sons] and Botta." Payments to Silva and Gaffuri are recorded in the Sanctuary's archives in July and February of 1667, respectively, so it is possible that the frescoes were finished before the sculptures were installed. This would have been somewhat unusual, since the Sacri Monti's sculptures were usually installed before work on the frescoes began. The painting in the central bay shows Jesus being presented to the crowd outside Pilate's palace during his trial. Gaffuri painted Peter's Denial of Christ in the bay to the left of the Ecce Homo and, on the right, a group of soldiers and priests that recall scenes of the Capture of Christ. The two bays nearest the viewer are plainly painted with an illusionistic green curtain that helps draw attention to the central scene. Agostino Silva also worked on the sculptural group of the same subject at Varese and left his signature there in 1701. It may be significant that these two chapels are the only ones at either mountain in which Agostino's signature survives. Other than Jesus, the men in this chapel are dressed in seventeenth century-style clothes and armor. The three dressed as soldiers are especially modern-looking; each one wears either the chain mail, plate armor, or a fitted/muscled parade breastplate cuirass with lion epaulets. Their halberds seem to be entirely wooden, without the metal blades that were used for real weapons, but they recall the three examples preserved in Chapels Six and Eight at Varese, which are actual weapons and with which Silva must certainly have been familiar, unless the halberds at Ossuccio were replaced or added later. The pose of the man to Christ's right is not consistent with the weapon in his hand, and the man to Christ's left seems to have lost his weapon altogether. This scene is also depicted at Varallo, Varese, Saas Fee, Visperterminen, Varralino di Galliate, and Somma Lombardo, but only at Ossuccio is Christ shown shying away in pain as the crown is pushed onto his head. As at Varese, the crown of thorns was made separately out of iron nails and some kind of twisted fiber before it was added. At Varallo the crown is made of real thorns and at the later sites the crown is sculpted as part of the figure. / The Sacro Monte of Ossuccio is dedicated to the fifteen mysteries of the rosary, and many of its chapels closely resemble those at the Sacro Monte of Varese (built 1605 - 1699), which is dedicated to the same subject. Agostino Silva (1628 - 1706), an artist from nearby Ticino, designed most of the scenes at Ossuccio. He was also active at the Sacro Monte sopra Varese, where the majority of chapels had been decorated by his father, Francesco Silva (1568 - 1641). The early history of this Sacro Monte remains unclear: some sources suggest that work began as early as 1623, but it is clear from the records of pastoral visits discovered by Daniele Pescamora that none of the chapels were built before July of 1644. Traditionally, many modern scholars have followed Santino Langé, who believed that Francesco had modeled the sculptures in the first three chapels at Ossuccio and Agostino had only taken charge of the project after his father's death in 1641. However, the pastoral records cited above preclude Francesco's involvement entirely and suggest that most of the scenes were decorated from the sixteen-sixties onward, when Agostino was active on the mountain (he was first documented at Ossuccio in 1663). The end of the devotional path is marked by the sanctuary of the Madonna del Soccorso, which was built in the first quarter of the sixteenth century and houses the final scene in the rosary sequence. Modern scholars date the miraculous image of the Madonna and Child for which the Sanctuary is named to the 14th century. Most of the statues of the Virgin that are venerated in the sanctuaries at the Italian Sacri Monti are made of wood, but Ossuccio's titular image is carved in white marble and embellished with gold accents. The existing sanctuary is believed to occupy the site of a pre-Christian temple to the Roman goddess Ceres. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the religious complex was overseen by Third Order Franciscans. Just as Bernardino Caimi had directed the construction of the Sacro Monte at Varallo, the project at Ossuccio was led by Brother Timothy Snider from c. 1643 until his death in 1682. Unlike Caimi, however, Snider seems to have designed the chapels and arranged the devotional path himself. All the chapels have likely been cleaned and restored multiple times since they were finished. Silvestro Marmori's conservation efforts in 1935 were particularly extensive and are well-documented by Pescamora (2004).
Description
Sacro Monte, Ossuccio
Citation
Cappuchin Fathers of the Santuario della Beata Vergine del Soccorso, Santuario Madonna del Soccorso - Ossuccio (Menaggio: Attilio Sampietro Editore, 1998), 4 - 8; Piera Gatta Papavassiliou, Il Sacro Monte di Ossuccio: Guida alle Cappelle (Carlazzo: Attilio Sampietro Editore, 2013), 88 - 95; Santino Langé, Sacri Monti Piemontsi e Lombardi (Milano: Tamburini Editore, 1967), 40 - 41; Daniele Pescamora, "Precisazioni storiche sul SM di Ossuccio (Avvio della ricerca)," Altri Sacri Monti (Atti del Convegno: Sacro Monte di San Francesco d'Orta, 30 November - 1 December 2001) (Gravellona Toce, Press Grafica slr, 2008), 97 - 107; Daniele Pescamora et al, "Il restauro della prima cappella del Sacro Monte di Ossuccio," Quaderni Fondazione Carlo Leone et Mariena Montadon, Vol. 1 (Como: NodoLibri, 2004), 25 - 26; Luigi Zanzi and Paolo Zanzi Eds., Atlante dei Sacri Monti prealpini (Milan: Skira, 2002), 96.