Arrival of the Magi
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Authors
Gaudenzio Ferrari with Gerolamo Ferrari, Fermo Stella, and Giuseppe Giovenone(?)
Date
Type
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Keyword
Arrival , Magi , Kings , Nativity , Jesus , Adoration of the Magi
Alternative Title
Abstract
The Bethlehem Complex, Chapels Five - Nine, houses some of the oldest devotional scenes at Varallo and was part of Barnardino Caimi's original plans for the site. Chapel Five was the last to be added to this complex. Construction work began on this chapel in 1516, but some problems with the funding caused unusual delays, so the structure was not finished until 1519 or 1520. Samuel Butler explains that some portion of the two hundred gold scudi that the Castellanza family of Milan had donated for the project had been "diverted to other uses." Butler also points out Giovanni Battista Fassola's reluctance to discuss the matter, even one and a half centuries later. Both the paintings and sculptures in this chapel were made by Gaudenzio Ferrari, with the help of his son Gerolamo Ferrari, assistant Fermo Stella da Caravaggio, and perhaps Giuseppe Giovenone the Elder, another member of Ferrari's workshop. Modern experts agree that the ten terracotta figures were completed between 1520 and 1528, although some of the nineteenth-century guidebooks, including Bordiga and Giuseppe Colombo (1881), date Gaudenzio's work here to the 1530s and say that he left the frescoes unfinished when his son died in 1539. This was certainly the last scene Gaudenzio made for Varallo, and scholars often compare it to his earlier work in the Crucifixion Chapel (c. 1517 - 1520). Like that chapel, the Arrival of the Magi was originally designed without any grates or barriers to separate the pilgrims from the figures. Whereas the crowd around the Crucifixion is relatively stable, however, the visitor follows the Magi's procession from left to right across the scene. Walking alongside the sculpted figures and occupying the same plane of existence breaks down the spiritual hierarchy between the biblical characters and their viewers, a hierarchy that is continually reinforced by the stage-like platform on which the figures in the Crucifixion Chapel stand. Galeazzo Alessi's drawing in the Libro dei Misteri (1565 - 1569) outlines plans for a barrier that wrapped closely around the figures, separating the visitors from the sculptures as both groups walked towards the same door in the far wall. It is not clear whether Alessi's grate was ever installed, but in 1614 the fabbricieri built a new corridor alongside the existing chapel and cut another doorway into the subsequent chapel, so that visitors were kept farther away from the group and traveled parallel to, rather than among, the Magi's retinue. It is likely that Alessi was the first artist to suggest a location for the barrier in this chapel. A large porch designed by Giacomo Geniani was added at the entrance to the chapel in the mid-nineteenth century. The early Seicento guidebooks by Giovanni Giacomo Ferrari (1611) and Tomasso Nanni (1616), which were the first devotional manuals about Varallo to be written in prose and include illustrations of each scene, both place this chapel after those of the Nativity and the Circumcision (Currently Chapels Six and Eight). Since visitors could not enter the Bethlehem Complex without passing through Chapel Five, this suggests that the authors were more concerned with representing the scriptural narrative in the proper order than directing pilgrims through the site itself. The Gospel of Matthew, which is the only one to describe the Magi's visit (2: 1-12), records that the Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem many months after Jesus was born (2:16). / 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), 316 - 331; Samuel Butler, Ex Voto: An Account of The Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia (London: Tübner & Co., 1888), 132 - 138; Gaudenzio Bordiga, Storia e guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Caligaris, 1830), 43 - 44; Girolamo Cattaneo, Guida per ben vistare la nuova Gerusalemme nel Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Calligaris, 1826), 17 - 19; Elena De Filippis, Guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Borgosesia: Tipolitografia di Borgosesia, 2009), 46 - 49; 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), 39 - 40.