Massacre of the Innocents
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Authors
Giacomo Paracca Bargnola, Michelangelo Rossetti, and Michele Prestinari
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
Massacre , Innocents , Bethlehem , Herod , King , Egypt
Alternative Title
Abstract
Carlo Emanue I, the Duke of Savoy, and his wife Caterina decided to build a chapel dedicated to this subject when they visited Varallo in 1585. The structure was finished the following year, but the interior decorations were not completed until ten years later. Brothers Enrico, Giacomo, and Giovanni d'Enrico oversaw the chapel's construction. Giovanni d'Enrico led the family workshop and directed the ongoing work at Varallo from 1602 until 1642. The first group of terracotta figures were modeled by Giacomo Antonio Paracca Bargnola (c. 1557 - 1587) of Valsolda and Michelangelo Rossetti of Claino in 1587 and 1590, respectively. Butler explains that there has traditionally been some confusion about the identity of these artists, who were not well known in his day. He notes that the early guidebooks universally attribute the figures to Bargnola, who is also called Paracca by some authors, despite the fact that one of the figures bears a signature inscribed into the fired clay, which reads: "Michel Ang. Rsti [Rosetti] Scul: Da Claino MDXC Etate an. VIIL." After relaying the reputed fame of these artists among their contemporaries, from the guides written by Fassola (1671) and Torrotti (1686), Butler concludes that the figures must have been started by Bargnola and finished by Rossetti after the first artist's death. Modern experts, including De Filippis and Stefani Perrone, continue to accept this sequence of events. The composition of the scene was based on Galeazzo Alessi's drawing for this chapel, which is recorded in the Libro dei Misteri (1565 - 1569). Between 1594 and 1595, Carlo Bascapè (1550 - 1615) instructed the fabbricieri to add more figures. Michele Prestinari, who was also from Claino in Lugano, made a new throne for King Herod and around thirty new innocenti to add to the drama and emotional impact of the scene. These sculptures were painted by Domenico Alfano before they were installed in 1595. Michele Prestinari is also known to have worked on the Cathedral of Milan (1595 and 1597 - 98) along with his sons Cristoforo Prestinari (1573 - 1623) and Marc Antonio Prestinari (c. 1570 - 1621), who were also sculptors. Cristoforo and his workshop made the figures for nine chapels at the Sacro Monte of Orta between 1600 and 1618, largely under the supervision of Bishop Bascapè. It may be that their acquaintance began here at Varallo as a result of the work Michele Prestinari completed at the bishop's request. Cristoforo also made sculptures for Chapel One (1610) and Chapel Three (c. 1611 - 1623) at the Sacro Monte sopra Varese. The frescoes in this chapel were painted by Giovanni Battista della Rovere (1561 - c. 1633) and his brother Giovanni Mauro Della Rovere (1575 - 1640), in 1590. The brothers were Milanese natives, but they were called I Fiaminghini by contemporaries because of the style of their work. These painters worked alongside Cristoforo Prestinari in many of the chapels at Orta, and Giovanni Mauro also completed three paintings of the life of saint Carlo for the series of Quadroni (1602) that were made for the Cathedral of Milan. Stefani Perrone notes that the frescoes in Chapel Eleven include a portrait of the duchess and self-portraits of I Fiaminghini. Many of the statues in this chapel were covered with gesso-dipped cloth in 1617, after Bishop Ferdinando Taverna judged the nude soldiers to be indecent. The roof of the chapel was raised in 1848, and in 1955 the original wooden grate was replaced with a new metal barrier. At that time (1954 - 1955), Emilio Contini restored the frescoes and some of the sculptures. The photos seen here date from the sculptures' most recent restoration, which was carried out between 2015 and 2020. In June of 2020 the Ente di Gestione dei Sacri Monti and the Fondazione San Paolo announced that they would soon begin a new intervention to conserve the frescoes, with an estimated budget of two hundred and eighty thousand Euro and a projected completion date in 2022. / 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
Samuel Butler, Ex Voto: An Account of The Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia (London: Tübner & Co., 1888), 144 - 152; Gaudenzio Bordiga, Storia e guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Caligaris, 1830), 46 - 48; Girolamo Cattaneo, Guida per ben vistare la nuova Gerusalemme nel Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Calligaris, 1826), 26 - 28; Elena De Filippis, Guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Borgosesia: Tipolitografia di Borgosesia, 2009), 60 - 61; 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), 43 - 45; Geoffrey Symcox, Jerusalem in the Alps: The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019), 114 - 115 & 124 - 125, ; Odette Tapella, "Varallo restaura gli affreschi della cappella della Stragi degli innocenti," Periodico daily (19 June 2020): https://www.periodicodaily.com/appaltato-il-restauro-della-cappella-della-strage-degli-innocenti/