Christ crowned with the Crown of Thorns
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Authors
Giovanni d'Enrico
Date
Type
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Language
Keyword
Jesus , Crown , Thorns , Crowning , Soldiers , Passion
Alternative Title
Abstract
This is the second of the three chapels along a long hallway on the ground floor of the Palazzo di Pilato. The building was built between 1595 and 1610 to house the scenes that took place during Christ's trial under the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. The structure of this particular chapel was completed in 1605, when Bishop Carlo Bascapè ordered that it should be expanded further. Giovanni d'Enrico finished the eight life-sized terracotta figures for the chapel's interior by 1608. In September of that year, the Fabbricieri gave the commission for the frescoes to a local painter, who is recorded by various authors as Anselmo de Otina, Alesina di Rassa, Francesco Tognotto di Rassa, and Antonio Rantio. A few years later, in 1614, the fabbricieri engaged a new artist: Ortensio Crespi di Cerano (1578 - post 1619), the younger brother of the famous painter Giovanni Battista Crespi (c. 1576 - 1632), who was called Il Cerano. Elena De Filippis writes that traces of the original decorations survive under the visible paint layer and suggests that the poor quality of these works may have led to Crespi's hire. He is believed to have painted the frescoes on the back and right-hand walls of the chapel, which show Pilate watching over the mocking of Christ and Jesus being draped in ceremonial robes, another symbolic insult. The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden, on the left-hand wall, is attributed to a yet another artist. Bordiga and Cattaneo identify the painter of this work by the name Farfanigo or Farfanico, while De Filippis suggests it may be another local named Testa or the younger Melchiorre d'Enrico, who was his namesake's nephew. Adam covers his face with both hands and Eve steps out in front of him, recalling Masaccio's fresco of the same scene at the Brancacci Chapel (1424 - 1427). The figures at Varallo, however, are the mirror image of those in Florence, which suggests that the painter may have been working from a print. The chapel and all its decorations were finished by the time of Bishop Taverna's visit in 1617. Maurizio Antonini restored the gilding on the figures' armor in 1820 and in 1831 Giovanni Albertone repaired some small breaks, while Giacomo Boccioloni repainted the figures as necessary. This chapel was also restored in 1979 - 1980 and again in 1987. Samuel Butler records an unusual miracle that occurred at this chapel on January 7, 1646: Bartholomew Jacob, who was from Graveling in Flanders, was healed of an ancestral curse that caused him to dance incessantly. The Virgin Mary had condemned nine generations of the man's family to dance after his forbearer had refused to stop a ball so that the last rites could be administered peacefully to someone upstairs in the house. When he approached the Nativity Chapel on the day of his visit, Bartholomew began to feel tired and upon reaching Chapel Thirty-One he "fell as one dead, to rise again presently perfectly whole and relieved of his destressing complaint." / 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), 183 - 187; Gaudenzio Bordiga, Storia e guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Caligaris, 1830), 70 - 71; Girolamo Cattaneo, Guida per ben vistare la nuova Gerusalemme nel Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Calligaris, 1826), 68 - 69; Elena De Filippis, Guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Borgosesia: Tipolitografia di Borgosesia, 2009), 106 - 107; 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), 65 - 66; Francesco Torrotti, Historia della Nuova Gierusalemme: Il Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Unknown, 1686), 83 - 84.