Presentation at the Temple (or The Circumcision)
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Authors
Gaudenzio Ferrari (attr. to) and Fermo Stella
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
Presentation , Circumcision , Virgin Mary , Jesus , St. Joseph , High Priest
Alternative Title
Abstract
This chapel was already built and decorated by the time Varallo's first guidebook, Questi sono li Misteri che sono sopra el Monte de Varalle, was published in 1514. The author wrote that the scene showed the Virgin placing her son on the table before the high priest "in this place just like that in which the blood of Jesus was first spilled," but the existing scene seems to portray the moment just before Mary handed her son to the priest (Luke 2: 22 - 38). These four figures are attributed to Gaudenzio Ferrari and are believed to be the first of his terracotta sculptures for the Sacro Monte. Gaudenzio Ferrari made for Varallo. Saint Joseph and the High Priest have often been attributed to Fermo Stella or another, unknown, member of Ferrari's workshop based on their stiff poses. The artist's unusually static handling, especially in the hands and faces of the male figures, could also be a result of their early date. Ferrari also painted the frescoes in this chapel, which were uncovered by conservators in 2008. The paintings were probably covered sometime in the second half of the nineteenth century, during the series of renovation projects led by instructors at Varallo's local art academy, the Scuola Barolo. Elena de Filippis distinguishes three giornate within the frescoes, indicating that the four women, four men, and the faux-stone paneling were each painted on separate days. The first image of this scene, which appeared in Giovanni Giacomo Ferrari's Brevi considerazioni Sopra i Misteri del Sacro Monte di Varallo (1611), includes two additional figures to the right of the priest that do not survive. These sculptures seem to have been removed sometime during the seventeenth-century. When a new series of prints was designed for the 1726 edition of Giovanni Battista da Grignasco's guidebook Direttorio per ben visitare la nova Gierusalemme, which was first published in 1704, only the Holy Family and the high priest remained in Chapel Eight. The wooden structure around the figures is based on the vitrine Galeazzo Alessi designed for Chapel Ten (The Flight into Egypt) in the late Fifteen-Sixties (1565 - 1569). Alessi's drawing of this chapel bears no resemblance to the existing group of figures, which calls the traditional attribution to Ferrari into question. The wooden barrier was probably installed between 1570 and 1580. It was also enlarged in 1884, when the roof of Chapel Eight was rebuilt and the height of the chapel was nearly doubled. The decorative frescoes in the new second story and the large sections of glass within the wooden framework were probably added shortly thereafter. The small wooden table that is painted to resemble inlaid stone was installed in 1847. Much like the previous two scenes, this chapel was designed to resemble the architecture of the Basilica of the Nativity in Bethlehem, which medieval pilgrims believed to be the site of Christ's circumcision, even though the gospels record that this event took place at the Temple in Jerusalem. The elaborate marble doorway through which the pilgrim enters Chapel Eight recreates the sunken portals leading to the Grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem. / 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), 206 - 211; Samuel Butler, Ex Voto: An Account of The Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia (London: Tübner & Co., 1888), 141 - 142; Gaudenzio Bordiga, Storia e guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Caligaris, 1830), 45; Girolamo Cattaneo, Guida per ben vistare la nuova Gerusalemme nel Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Calligaris, 1826), 22 - 23; Elena De Filippis, Guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Borgosesia: Tipolitografia di Borgosesia, 2009), 46 & 54 - 55; 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; Nicholas Penny, National Gallery Catalogues: The Sixteenth Century Italian Paintings (Volume I: Paintings from Bergamo, Brescia and Cremona) (London: National Gallery Company, 2004), 116; Stefania Stefani Perrone, Guida al Sacro Monte di Varallo (Torino: Kosmos Edizioni, 1995), 41 - 42.