Temptation of Christ in the Desert

Abstract

This chapel was built during the last decade of the fifteenth century and is, therefore, one of the oldest chapels at Varallo. Construction was probably finished, or nearing completion, by the time Caimi died in 1499. At that time, the chapel was located just inside the gate that pilgrims used to enter the Sacro Monte. This portal is still extant, but Alessi and his patron Giacomo d'Adda added a monumental arch to the site in 1565 - 1566, which leads to the new Chapel of Adam and Eve (Chapel One) and has served as the main entrance to Varallo since then. At the time, this building housed a group of wooden sculptures that showed Jesus carrying the cross to Golgotha. Stefani Perrone suggests that it was called the Chiesa Nera because two of the walls were painted black. Between 1570 and 1572 the chapel was divided in two, in order to accommodate a new scene of the Temptation of Christ. The stucco figures of Jesus and Satan that are still housed in the chapel today were made during this period of reorganization, c. 1572 - 1576. They were based on Alessi's plans for the scene, although the artist responsible remains unknown. Samuel Butler reports that the clothes these figures wear are made of real cloth dipped in gesso and tells his readers that the Devil is dressed as "a most respectable-looking patriarchal old Jewish Rabbi." These garments do not much resemble what the high priest in Chapel Eight wears, however, so Butler's reasoning for this statement remains somewhat unclear. The new decorations were finished by 1580, but in 1599, Bishop Bascapè ordered the earlier group of Christ Carrying the Cross to be removed. Moving this scene to a new building clarified the narrative sequence of the chapels, so that visitors witnessed the events of the Passion in the same order in which they occurred. Jean de Wespin, called Il Tabachetti, was charged with decorating the new scene of the Via al Calvario in Chapel Thirty-Six and the earlier wooden group was lost. Gaudenzio Ravelli installed the elaborate wooden grille we see today in 1599. The menagerie of terracotta animals gathered around the two figures were mostly added that year, and a few more were installed later in the nineteenth century. Stefani Perrone attributes the animals to Il Tabachetti and Michele Prestinari but notes that they were painted by Domenico Alfano. The frescoes in this chapel were painted by Melchiorre d'Enrico in the first decade of the seventeenth century, perhaps with the help of his brother Antonio d'Enrico (c. 1575 - 1633), who is better known as Tanzio da Varallo. Nearly the all the figures were repainted by Carlo Giuseppe Delzanno in 1850. Elena de Filippis records that perimeter of the chapel was surrounded by a new exterior wall in 2008-2009. The space between the new wall and the existing one is intended to provide insulation and protect the art inside against humidity. This was the latest in a series of structural renovations: other parts of the building were altered or replaced in 1867, 1929, and 1946. The sculptures were also treated by conservators in 1993. / 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.