Investiture of Francis' first followers
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Authors
Cristoforo Prestinari
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
St. Francis , Investiture , Disciples , Followers , Franciscan Order , Brothers
Alternative Title
Abstract
Cristoforo Prestinari (1573 - 1623) and his workshop made the sculptures for this chapel in 1615. It shows Bernardo Quintavalle, Pietro Cattaneo, and "a certain Egidio" kneeling before Francis at the center of the scene as they vow to follow his teachings and prepare to don the habit of the order for the first time. The statues and the two-dimensional figures surrounding them were painted by Giovanni Battista della Rovere also in 1615. Giovanni Battista (1561 - c. 1633) and his brother, Giovanni Mauro della Rovere (1575 - 1640), were called I Fiammenghini by their contemporaries. This chapel pairs sculpted figures with a crowd of painted onlookers for the first time at Orta. Although we see a similar solution in Chapel 4, the frescoes here were painted earlier. The technique was developed by Gaudenzio Ferrari (c. 1480 - 1546) at Varallo about a century earlier. Above the painted crowd, the frescoes vignettes depicting more scenes from Saint Francis's life, which was typical of Orta's chapels by the early seventeenth century. The chapel's façade is based closely on the serliana-style porch and triangular pediment of Galeazzo Alessi's new Chapel One (c. 1566) for the Sacro Monte at Varallo, which depicts Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Visitors that were familiar with Varallo might understand the architecture framing these two scenes as connecting two creation narratives. Although it would not be officially confirmed by the pope until later, the Franciscans at Orta viewed this as the moment in which their order was founded. They described it as such in a handwritten guidebook preserved in the convent's archive and published by Pier Giorgio Longo in 2008. The commitment of these first Franciscans to follow Christ and Saint Francis recalls 2 Corinthians 5, which both describes converts as "new creations" (5:17) and promises that God will "clothe" his followers with a new "heavenly dwelling" in the life to come (5: 2-4). This reading may help clarify the connection between the sculpted scene and the image of God the Father and the Lamb in Judgement on the vault above. / Orta is the second oldest Sacro Monte. Construction began on the chapels there in 1591, just over a hundred years after the first Sacro Monte site was established at nearby Varallo. A community of Capuchin friars lived on the mountain, oversaw construction, and guided visitors on their pilgrimages once the chapels were finished. One of the brothers, Cleto da Castelletto Ticino (1556 - 1619) designed a series of thirty-six mysteries for the site, although only twenty chapels were ever completed. Before joining the Capuchin Order, Cleto had trained as an architect and engineer. After construction began at Orta, he also worked alongside Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527 - 1596), one of Carlo Borromeo's favorite architects. Amico Canobio (1532 - 1592), a Benedictine Abbot and Commissioner of the secular lands within the diocese of Novara, oversaw Cleto's work and was the first major patron of the chapels at Orta. Carlo Bascapè (1550 - 1615) took charge of directing the progress at Orta as soon he was named Bishop of Novara in 1593, the year after Canobio's death.
Description
Sacro Monte, Orta
Citation
Elena De Filippis and Fiorella Mattioli Carcano, Guida al Sacro di Orta (Omegna & Novara: Litotipografica Editoriale Gianni Fovana & Ente gestione riserve naturali speciali del Sacro Monte di Orta del Monte Mesma e del Colle della Torredi Buccione, 2001), 21 - 23; Guido Gentile, Sacri Monti (Torino: Einaudi, 2019), 271 - 290; Cynthia Ho, Kathleen Peters, and John McClain, Sacred Views of Saint Francis: The Sacro Monte di Orta (Santa Barbara: Punctum Books, 2020), 68 - 70; Santino Langé, Sacri Monti Piemontsi e Lombardi (Milano: Tamburini Editore, 1967), 20 - 25; Pier Giorgio Longo, Antiche guide del Sacro Monte di Orta (tra XVII e XVIII secolo) (Novara: Italgrafica slr & Ente gestione riserve naturali speciali del Sacro Monte di Orta del Monte Mesma e del Colle della Torredi Buccione, 2008), 84 - 85 & 162 - 165; Father Angelo Maria Manzini, Sacro Monte di Orta. (Milan: Tipolito Testori, 2006), 30 - 31; Enrico Massone Ed., Sacri Monte in Piemonte: Itinerari nelle aree protete di Belmonte, Crea, Domodossola, Ghiffa, Orta, Varallo (Torino: Kosmos, 1994), 105 - 127; Geoffrey Symcox, Jerusalem in the Alps: The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy (Turnhout: Brepolis, 2019), 207 - 218; Luigi Zanzi and Paolo Zanzi Eds., Atlante dei Sacri Monti prealpini (Milan: Skira, 2002), 94 - 95.