Ex Voto Part 7

Fa.s.sola and Torrotti say that this chapel was originally a servant's lodge ("ospizio delli serui della Fabrica"), and part of the building is still used as a store-room. The servants were subsequently s.h.i.+fted to what was then the chapel of the Capture of Christ, the figures in that chapel being moved to the one in which they are now.

The original Capture chapel was on the ground floor of the large house that stands on the right hand as one enters the small entrance to the Sacro Monte which a visitor will be tempted to take, opposite Giovanni Pschel's chapel, and a little below the Temptation chapel.

The First Vision of St. Joseph is not mentioned in either the 1586 or 1590 editions of Caccia; we may therefore be certain that it did not exist, and may also be sure that it was Tabachetti's last work upon the Sacro Monte--for that it is by him has never been disputed. It should probably be dated early in 1591, by which time Tabachetti must have recovered his reason and was on the point of leaving Varallo for ever. I give a photograph of the very beautiful figure of St.

Joseph, which must rank among the finest on the Sacro Monte. I grant that a sleeping figure is the easiest of all subjects, except a dead one, inasmuch as Nature does not here play against the artist with loaded dice, by being able to give the immediate change of position which the artist cannot. With sleep and death there is no change required, so that the hardest sleeping figure is easier than the easiest waking one; moreover, sleep is so touching and beautiful that it is one of the most taking of all subjects; nevertheless there are sleeping figures and sleeping figures, and the St. Joseph in the chapel we are considering is greatly better than the second sleeping St. Joseph in chapel No. 9, by whomsoever this figure may be--or than the sleeping Apostles by D'Enrico in chapel No. 22.

Cusa says that the Madonna is taken from a small figure modelled by Gaudenzio still existing at Valduggia in the possession of the Rivaroli family. She is a very pretty and graceful figure, and is sewing on a pillow in the middle of the composition--of course unmoved by the presence of the angel, who is only visible to her husband. The angel is also a remarkably fine figure.

CHAPTER X. THE SEVEN CHAPELS NUMBERED 5-11.

CHAPEL No. 5. VISIT OF THE MAGI.

Fa.s.sola says that this chapel was begun about the year 1500, and completed about 1520, at the expense of certain wealthy Milanese; Torrotti repeats this. Bordiga gives it a later date, making Gaudenzio begin to work in it in 1531; he supposes that Gaudenzio left Varallo suddenly in that year to undertake work for the church of St. Cristoforo at Vercelli without quite completing the Magi frescoes; and it is indeed true that the frescoes appear to be unfinished, some parts at first sight seeming only sketched in outline, as though the work had been interrupted; but Colombo, whose industry is only equalled by his fine instinct and good sense, refers both the frescoes and their interruption to a later date. Still, Fa.s.sola may have only intended, and indeed probably did intend, that the sh.e.l.l of the building was completed by 1520, the figures and frescoes being deferred for want of funds, though the building was ready for occupation.

Colombo, on page 115 of his "Life and Work of Gaudenzio Ferrari,"

says that Bordiga remarked the obvious difference in style between the frescoes in the Magi and the Crucifixion chapels, which he held to have been completed in 1524, but nevertheless thought seven years the utmost that pa.s.sed between the two works. Colombo shows that by 1528 Gaudenzio was already established at Vercelli, and ascribes the frescoes in the Magi chapel to a date some time between 1536 and 1539, during which time he believes that Gaudenzio returned to Varallo, finding no trace of him elsewhere. The internal evidence in support of this opinion is strong, for the Crucifixion chapel is not a greater advance upon the frescoes in the church of St. Maria delle Grazie, painted in 1513, magnificent as these last are, than the Magi frescoes are upon the Crucifixion, and an interval of ten years or so is not too much to allow between the two. Gaudenzio Ferrari was like Giovanni Bellini, a slow but steady grower from first to last; with no two painters can we be more sure that as long as they lived they were taking pains, and going on from good to better; nevertheless, it takes many years before so wide a difference can be brought about, as that between the frescoes in the Magi and Crucifixion chapels. The Magi frescoes have, however, unfortunately suffered from damp much more than the Crucifixion ones, and I should say they had been a good deal retouched, but by a very capable artist.

Colombo thinks that in these frescoes Gaudenzio was a.s.sisted by his son Gerolamo, who died in 1539, and, as I have said, holds that it was the death of this son which made him leave Varallo, without even finis.h.i.+ng the frescoes on which he was engaged.

But Signor Arienta a.s.sures me that the frescoes were not in reality left incomplete: he holds that the wall on the parts where the outline shows was too dry when the colour was laid on, and that it has gradually gone, leaving the outline only. This, he tells me, not unfrequently happens, and has occurred in one or two places even in the Crucifixion chapel, where an arm here and there appears unfinished. The parts in the Magi chapel that show the outline only are not likely to have been left to the last; they come in a very random haphazard way, and I have little hesitation in accepting Signor Arienta's opinion. If, however, this is wrong and the work was really unfinished, I should ascribe this fact to the violent dissensions that broke out in 1538, and should incline towards using it as an argument for a.s.signing this date to the frescoes themselves, more especially as it fits in with whatever other meagre evidence we have.

Something went wrong with the funds destined for the erection of this chapel, and this may account for the length of time taken to erect the chapel itself, as well as for subsequent delay in painting it and filling it with statues. In the earlier half of his work Fa.s.sola says that certain Milanese gentlemen, "Signori della Castellanza,"

subscribed two hundred gold scudi with which to found the chapel, but that the money was in part diverted to other uses--"a matter," he says, "about which I am compelled to silence by a pa.s.sage in my preface;" this pa.s.sage is the expression of a desire to avoid giving offence; but Fa.s.sola says the interception of the funds involved the chapel's "remaining incomplete for some time." There seems, in fact, to have been some serious scandal in connection with the money, about which, even after 150 years, Fa.s.sola was unwilling to speak.

I would ask the reader to note in pa.s.sing that in this work, high up on the spectator's right, Gaudenzio has painted some rocks with a truth which was in his time rare. In the earliest painting, rocks seem to have been considered hopeless, and were represented by a something like a mould for a jelly or blanc-mange; yet rocks on a grey day are steady sitters, and one would have thought the early masters would have found them among the first things that they could do, whereas on the contrary they were about the last to be rendered with truth and freedom by the greatest painters. This was probably because rocks bored them; they thought they could do them at any time, and were more interested with the figures, draperies, and action. Leonardo da Vinci's rocks, for example, are of no use to any one, nor yet for the matter of that is any part of his landscape-- what little there is of it. Holbein's strong hand falls nerveless before a rock or mountain side, and even Marco Basaiti, whose landscape has hardly been surpa.s.sed by Giovanni Bellini himself, could not treat a rock as he treated other natural objects. As for Giovanni Bellini, I do not at this moment remember to have seen him ever attempt a bit of slate, or hard grey gritty sandstone rock.

This is not so with Gaudenzio, his rocks in the Magi chapel, and again in the Pieta compartment of his fresco in the church of St.

Maria delle Grazie, at the foot of the mountain, are as good as rocks need ever be. The earliest really good rocks I know are in the small entombment by Roger Van der Weyden in our own National Gallery.

Returning to the terra-cotta figures in the Magi chapel, there is nothing about them to find fault with, but they do not arouse the same enthusiasm as the frescoes. They too are sufferers by damp and lapse of time, and a painted terra-cotta figure does not lend itself to a dignified decay. The disjecti membra poetae are hard to recognise if painted terra-cotta is the medium through which inspiration has been communicated to the outer world. Outside the Magi chapel, invisible by the Magi, and under a small glazed lantern which lights the St. Joseph with the Virgin adoring the Infant Saviour, and the Presepio, hangs the star. It is very pretty where it is, but its absence from the chapel itself is, I think, on the whole, regrettable. I have been sometimes tempted to think that it originally hung on the wall by a hook which still remains near the door through which the figures must pa.s.s, but think it more probable that this hook was used to fasten the string of a curtain that was hung over the window.

In conclusion, I should say that Colombo says that the figures being short of the prescribed number were completed by Fermo Stella.

Bordiga gives the horses only to this artist.

CHAPEL No. 6. IL PRESEPIO.

This is more a grotto than a chapel, and is declared in an inscription set up by Bernardino Caimi in letters of gold to be "the exact counterpart of the one at Bethlehem in which the Virgin gave birth to her Divine Son." Bordiga writes of this inscription as still visible, but I have repeatedly looked for it without success.

If Caimi, as Fa.s.sola distinctly says, had the above inscription set up, it is plain that this, and perhaps the Shepherd's chapel hard by, were among the very earliest chapels undertaken. This is rendered probable by the statement of Fa.s.sola that the sh.e.l.l of the Circ.u.mcision chapel which adjoins the ones we are now considering was built "dalli principij del Sacro Monte." He says that this fact is known by the testimony of certain contemporaneous painters ("il che s' argumenta dalli Pittori che furono di que' tempi"). Clearly, then, the Presepio, Shepherds, and Circ.u.mcision chapels were in existence some years before the Magi chapel was begun. Gaudenzio was too young to have done the figures before Bernardino died.

Originally, doubtless, the grotto was shown without figures, which were added by Gaudenzio, later on; they were probably among his first works. The place is so dark that they cannot be well seen, but about noon the sun comes down a narrow staircase and they can be made out very well for a quarter of an hour or so; they are then seen to be very good. They have no fres...o...b..ckground, nor yet is there any to the Shepherd's chapel, which confirms me in thinking these to have been among the earliest works undertaken. Colombo says that the infant Christ in the Presepio is not by Gaudenzio, the original figure having been stolen by some foreigner not many years ago, and Battista, the excellent Custode of the Sacro Monte, a.s.sures me that this was the second time the infant had been stolen.

CHAPEL No. 7. VISIT OF THE SHEPHERDS.

Some of the figures--the Virgin, one shepherd, and four little angels--in this chapel are believed to be by Gaudenzio, and if they are, they are probably among his first essays, but they are lighted from above, and the spectator looks down on them, so that the dust shows, and they can hardly be fairly judged. The hindmost shepherd-- the one with his hand to his heart and looking up, is the finest figure; the Virgin herself is also very good, but she wants was.h.i.+ng.

If Fa.s.sola and Torrotti are to be believed, {12} and I am afraid I must own that, much as I like them, I find them a little credulous, the Virgin in this chapel is more remarkable than she appears at first sight; she used originally to have her face turned in admiration towards the infant Christ, but at the very first moment that she heard the bells begin to ring for the elevation of Pope Innocent the Tenth to the popedom, she turned round to the pilgrims visiting the place, in token of approbation; the authorities, not knowing what to make of such behaviour, had her set right, but she turned round a second time with a most gracious smile and a.s.sumed the position which the elevation of no later Pope has been ever able to disturb. Pope Innocent X. was not exactly the kind of Pope whom one would have expected the Virgin to greet with such extraordinary condescension. If it had been the present amiable and venerable Pontiff there would have been less to wonder at.

CHAPEL No. 8. CALLED BY Fa.s.sOLA AND TORROTTI THE CIRc.u.mCISION, AND BY BORDIGA THE PURIFICATION.

The chapel itself is, as I have already said, one of the very oldest on the Sacro Monte; it is doubtless much older than either the frescoes or the terra-cotta figures which it contains, both of which are given by Fa.s.sola, Torrotti, and Bordiga to Fermo Stella, but I cannot think they are right in either case. The frescoes remind me more of Lanini, and are much too modern for Fermo Stella; they are, however, in but poor preservation, and no very definite opinion can be formed concerning them. The terra-cotta work is, I think, also too free for Fermo Stella. The infant Jesus is very pretty, and the Virgin would also be a fine figure if she was not spoiled by the wig and over-much paint which restorers have doubtless got to answer for.

The work is mentioned in the 1586 edition of Caccia as completed, but there is nothing to show whether or no it was a restoration. I have long thought I detected a certain sub-Flemish feeling in both the Virgin and Child, and though aware that I have very little grounds for doing so, am half inclined to think that Tabachetti must have had something to do with them. Bordiga is clearly wrong in calling the chapel a Purification. There are no doves, and there must always be doves for a Purification. Besides, there was till lately a knife ready for use lying on the table, as shown in Guidetti's ill.u.s.tration of the chapel.

CHAPEL No. 9. JOSEPH WARNED TO FLY.

This chapel is described as completed in both the 1586 and 1590 editions of Caccia. The figures are again given to Fermo Stella by Bordiga, but not by either Fa.s.sola or Torrotti. I am again unable to think that Bordiga is right. There is again, also, a sub-Flemish feeling which is difficult to account for. The angel is a fine figure, and the heads of the Virgin and Child are also excellent, but the folds of the drapery are not so good. If there were any evidence, which there is not, to show that these figures were early works of Tabachetti, and that the sleeping St. Joseph is a first attempt at the figure which he succeeded later so admirably in rendering, I should be inclined to accept it; as it is, I can form no opinion about the authors.h.i.+p of the terra-cotta work. The fres...o...b..ckground is worthless.

CHAPEL No. 10. THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT.

This chapel is of no great interest. The authors and the date are uncertain. It is mentioned in the 1586 and 1590 editions of Caccia, but we may be tolerably sure that Tabachetti had nothing to do with it. Bordiga says "the figures seem to be by Stella," which may be right or may be wrong. Though the figures are not very good, yet this chapel has, or had in Fa.s.sola's time, other merits perhaps even of greater than artistic value, for he says it is particularly useful to those who have lost anything. "Perditori di qualche cosa" are more especial recipients of grace in consequence of devotion at this particular chapel. The flight is conducted as leisurely as flights into Egypt invariably are, but has with it a something, I know not what--perhaps it is the donkey--which always reminds me of Hampstead Heath on a bank holiday.

CHAPEL No. 11. Ma.s.sACRE OF THE INNOCENTS.

This is one of the most remarkable chapels on the Sacro Monte, and also one of the most abounding in difficult problems. It was built with funds provided by Carlo Emanuele I., Duke of Savoy, about the year 1586, and took four years to complete. In the 1586-7 edition of Caccia the chapel itself is alone given as completed. In the 1590-1 edition, it is said that both the sculptures and the frescoes were now finished, and that they are all "bellissime e ben fatti (sic)."

This is confirmed by an inscription on the collar of a soldier who stands near Herod's right hand, and which, I do not doubt, is intended to govern the whole of the terra-cotta work. The inscription runs -

"Michel Ang. RSTI" (Rossetti) "Scul: Da Claino MDXC Etate an.

VIIL"

This exactly tallies with the dates given in the two editions of Caccia.

The date is thus satisfactorily established, but the authors.h.i.+p of the work is less easily settled. All the authorities without exception say that the sculptor was a certain Giacomo Bargnola of Valsolda, who was also called Bologna. Fa.s.sola describes him as a "statuario virtuosissimo e glorioso per tutta l' Europa," and Torrotti calls him "il famoso Giacomo Bargnola di Valsoldo [sic]

sopranominato Bologna." All subsequent writers have repeated this.

At Varallo itself I found nothing known about either Bargnola or Valsolda, but turning to Zani find Bargnola under the name Paracca.

Zani says, "Paracca, non Peracca, ne Perracca, ne Perrazza, Giannantonio, o Giacomo, detto il Valsoldo, Valsolino, e il Valsoldino, non Valfondino, ed anche il Bargnola, e malamente Antonio Valsado Parravalda." He says that he was a "plastico" and restorer of statues, came from the neighbourhood of Como, was "bravissimo,"

and lived about from 1557-1587. There was a Luigi Paracca from the same place who was also called "Il Valsoldino" and a Giacomo, and an Andrea, but of these last three he does not say that they were noteworthy.

Nagler mentions only a Giovanni Antonio Parracca, who he says was called Valsolda. He says that he was a sculptor of Milan, who made a reputation at Rome about 1580 as a restorer of antique statues; that he only worked in order to get money to spend on debauchery, and died, according to Baglione, young, and in a hospital. His words are -

"Paracca, Gio. Antonio gennant Valsoldo, Bildhauer von Mailand, machte sich um 1580 in Rom als Restaurator antiker Werke einen Namen, arbeitete aber nur, um Geld zur Schwelgerei zu bekommen. Starb jung im Hospital wie Baglione versichert."