Joseph's First Dream
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Authors
Giovanni d'Enrico
Date
Type
Image
Language
Keyword
St. Joseph , Dream , Virgin Mary , Conception , Angel , Birth
Alternative Title
Abstract
This space was originally an open-air portico, where pilgrims could buy food and rest after their arrival at the top of the mountain. In 1597 a new tavern was opened outside the boundaries of the Sacro Monte, where the Albergo Sacro Monte now stands, and the portico came to be used for storage instead. After the turn of the century, Bishop Carlo Bascapè directed the fabbricieri to close off the space and create a new chapel there. Since construction took place between 1603 and 1608, the Bishop probably issued his order in 1602. Bascapè visited the Sacro Monte annually between 1602 and 1604. Modern scholars attest that the three terracotta sculptures inside the chapel were modeled by Giovanni d'Enrico sometime between 1608 and 1610, although guidebooks into the late nineteenth century attributed the works to Jean de Wespin. The more recent attribution reflects the great attention to detail and lifelikeness with which Giovanni d'Enrico infused his figures. As with his sleeping disciples in Chapel Twenty-Two, the artist has carefully accounted for the physical effects of each gesture, down to the fleshy folds of skin on Joseph's neck as his head tilts back heavily against the chair as he sleeps. Elena de Filippis suggests that the sculptures were installed sometime after 1613. The statue of the Virgin is believed to be based on a small terracotta model by Gaudenzio Ferrari, which belonged to the Rivaroli family of Valduggia by the mid-nineteenth century according to Samuel Butler and Michele Cusa. The frescoes of trompe l'oeil tapestries that currently surround the scene were painted by Giuseppe Braziano of Borgosesia and Lucrezio Regaldi of Varallo in 1927. This chapel was not included in the first illustrated guidebook to Varallo, Giovanni Giacomo Ferrari's Brevi considerazioni Sopra i Misteri del Sacro Monte di Varallo (1611), but it does appear in the second such work, which was published five years later. The woodblock print in Tomasso Nanni's Dialogo sopra i misteri del Sacro Monti di Varallo (1616) suggests that the figures were originally situated in a more traditional and modern-looking domestic interior, with a fireplace on the left and a window with iron bars behind Mary. The image also shows a large woodworking bench behind Joseph's chair with a variety of tools hanging from a shelf on the wall. There have been at least four campaigns to restore or repaint the frescoes in this chapel, which took place in 1850, 1927, 1969, and c. 2010. / 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), 129 - 131; Gaudenzio Bordiga, Storia e guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Caligaris, 1830), 42; Girolamo Cattaneo, Guida per ben vistare la nuova Gerusalemme nel Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Calligaris, 1826), 16 - 17; Elena De Filippis, Guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Borgosesia: Tipolitografia di Borgosesia, 2009), 44 - 45; 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), 38 - 39; Geoffrey Symcox, Jerusalem in the Alps: The Sacro Monte of Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019), 125.