Christ brought before Pilate's Court (or Christ conducted to the Praetorium)
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Authors
Gaudenzio Ferrari (attr. to), Unknown, Giovanni d'Enrico, and Giacomo Ferro
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Keyword
Jesus , Trial , Passion , Pilate , Governor , Praetorium
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Abstract
This is the last of the three chapels on the ground floor of the building called Pilate's Palace, which was built between 1595 and 1610 to house the scenes of Jesus' trial and sentencing by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. Before the palace complex was constructed there was another chapel on this site dedicated to the Oration in the Garden (now Chapel Twenty-One), which came to be incorporated into the new building and resulted in the unusual floorplan of the current scene. Stefania Stefani Perrone writes that, for a time, the archway at the end of the hall opened onto the central piazza. The sculptures were not installed until sometime after 1628, so it may be that the space was enclosed shortly before then. Two of the five life-sized figures were modeled by Giovanni d'Enrico and his assistant Giacomo Ferro around 1640. They are made of terracotta. The remaining three figures are made of wood and predate the existing chapel. The statues of Christ and his guide were carved by Gaudenzio Ferrari (c. 1480 - 1546) around 1510. They were originally located in the Chapel that showed Jesus being stripped of his garments before the Crucifixion, which stood on the site of the modern Pietà chapel (Chapel Forty). The soldier directly behind Christ in Chapel Thirty-Two is believed to have been made for the first scene of The Capture of Christ (now Chapel Twenty-Three), which was funded by the Spanish governor of Milan Alfonso d'Avalos after he visited Varallo in 1538. That chapel was decorated between 1540 and 1545 by the workshop of an unknown artist. The frescoes here were painted around 1670 by Pierfrancesco Gianoli (1624 - c. 1692), who was from nearby Campertogno. Early guidebooks, including those by Giovanni Battista Fassola (1671) and Torrotti (1686), recorded that Ferrari had painted the frescoes although it is now clear that this chapel did not exist while he was active at Varallo. The two cloaked figures at the edge of the painted crowd, on the left, are believed to be portraits of Gianoli and Giovanni d'Enrico. Gianoli's fresco echoes the scene represented by the sculptures, so Christ and his captor both appear twice. The sculpted figures seem to move towards the real staircase that visitors will soon climb to reach the chapels on the second floor of the building. This is a replica of the Santa Scala in the Roman church of San Giovanni in Laterano. Those twenty-eight marble steps are believed to be the actual staircase that Jesus climbed during his trial in the governor's palace in Jerusalem and were transported miraculously to Rome after Christ's death. Bishop Carlo Bascapè suggested building a copy of the staircase in the new building at Varallo in the early Seicento, and the Fabbrica acquired a detailed plan of the relic to guide their work. The staircase was finished in 1627, while Milano Torrotti di Rassa was the Sacro Monte's head builder. The chapel of Christ's first appearance before Pontius Pilate (Chapel Twenty-Seven) also features a large staircase that recalls the relic in Rome. Elena de Filippis writes that the statues in this chapel were repainted by Giacomo Boccioloni and regilded by Antonio Chiara in 1832. They were restored again in 1993 and the frescoes were treated in 1995 - 1998. / 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), 187 - 188; Gaudenzio Bordiga, Storia e guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Caligaris, 1830), 71; Girolamo Cattaneo, Guida per ben vistare la nuova Gerusalemme nel Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Francesco Calligaris, 1826), 70 - 73; Casimiro Debiaggi, Dizionario degli artisti valsesiani dal secolo XIV al XX (Varallo: Società conservazione opere arte monumenti Valsesia, 1968), 77 - 78; Elena De Filippis, Guida del Sacro Monte di Varallo (Borgosesia: Tipolitografia di Borgosesia, 2009), 108 - 109; Lorenzo Fecchio, Il 'nuovo miglor ordine' per il Sacro Monte di Varallo Sesia (Florence: DIDA Press, Università degli Studi di Firenze, and the Ente di gestione dei Sacri Monti, 2019), 157 - 159; 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), 66 - 67; Francesco Torrotti, Historia della Nuova Gierusalemme: Il Sacro Monte di Varallo (Varallo: Unknown, 1686), 84.