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[Back to Piedmont]
UNESCO recently declared Piedmont's Sacri Monti to be World Heritage sites. There are seven rural pilgrimage chapels: Nuova Gerusalemme in Varallo Sesia (Vc), Nostra Signora dell'Assunzione di Serralunga in Crea a Ponzano (Al), Santa Vergine in Oropa (Bi), Santa Trinità in Ghiffa (Vb), Calvario in Domodossola (Vb), Santuario di Belmonte in Valperga Canavese (To) and this one, San Franceso in Orta San Giulio (No).
Back in the 1500s, there was a brief and rather interesting vogue in northern Italy, which entailed finding a secluded, preferably picturesque, rural location and erecting several small chapels containing frescoes and life-sized statues depicting scenes from the Bible. Sort of like the rich merchants of San Gimignano who tried to ensure their status in town by building taller and taller and more and more towers, wealthy northerners paid for these sanctuaries to secure their places in Heaven. Before I go on to describe the delightful, and very moving, sanctuary that adorns a leafy hilltop overlooking Italy's trendiest lake, I'd just like to interject a note of 21st-century realism right at the start. About halfway along on my pilgrimage through the twenty chapels, I suddenly had a vision of myself as a young girl in Manhattan, gazing with awestruck devotion at the Christmas displays in the department store windows. Leaning up against the ancient wrought-iron gates that protect the ceramic figures in the Sacro Monte, I was flooded with the same emotions, and I realized exactly how these representations were much more than a place to spend an idle weekend afternoon. They could actually create a bond that would last a lifetime, by allowing the faithful to literally become a character in the lives of the saints.
I visited the Sacro Monte one balmy July morning when the sun was slipping in and out behind the clouds, causing sudden flashes on the otherwise motionless waters of the lake. Orta is so small that you can see the whole perimeter from the hillside. Directly below are the red-tiled roofs of the tiny ancient town of Orta itself. Just in front of that is the little island of San Giulio dominated by its austere 12th-century basilica. Beyond, in the mists, lurk the far shores of the lake, blanketed with rich green forests, interspersed with minuscule hamlets (whose residents you suspect all bear the same surname….) and topped by the glistening white Madonna del Sasso, perched high atop her lone promontory. Only minutes from the lake's northern shore, the Alps begin in earnest. But you can't stand down here on the pleasant southern edge and just gaze at them, like at Como. If you want to see the Alps at Lago d'Orta, you'll have to brave that dramatically soaring highway for a few miles and get on up there yourself.
For me it was plenty just wandering along the pathways that climb the very gentle incline of the Sacro Monte. The itinerary is simple to follow. Basically, you just park your car and follow the numbers. If you get confused, each chapel has a delicately frescoed hand on one of its outer walls, with index finger pointing the way to the next number. Oh, if only the modern roads of Italy were so well marked!
 Madonna del Sasso |
Beware all ye who enter here: you will learn the life story of The Little Flower, whether you want to or not. Chapel One actually predates the saint, being a depiction of Francis's youthful mother suffering the pains of labor while receiving the visit of an angel who tells her to forsake her wealthy bedchamber and deliver the baby in a stable. "If you do, the labor will not be painful." Mothers of the world, you can imagine where San Francesco was born! Echoing this lowly beginning to earthly life, above the grill is an oil painting of the baby Jesus.
By the time we step next door to Chapel Two, the boy has grown into a young man, who kneels before a crucifix in his hometown church of San Damiano. Miraculously, the statue speaks to him (just as it does to us). It tells him to reject his wealth. In the next panel, Francis is seen donning the tattered sackcloth he has just received from a humble soldier who now wears the saint's costly attire.
At this point we set off along Brother Wind Avenue to Chapel Three, one of the earliest. The exterior is a perfect little classical gem which could easily have been designed by the great Carlo Borromeo. Inside, we see a naked St. Francis giving all his worldly goods to the Bishop of Assisi. What's most interesting here is the way the sunlight streams through the carefully placed windows, combining with the two observation holes in the grill. It's easy to see that the creators wanted to control exactly how we would view this scene.
Chapel Four presents us with our first glimpse of a dramatic technique that uses sculptures as a foreground and frescoes as a background. Here we see a large group of parishioners listening to the Mass with Francis. In those days, it was quite remarkable that the group would include lower classes and rich burghers rubbing shoulders in the same setting. As in every one of the chapels, angels soar through the clouds on the vault above, never letting their beloved saint out of their sight.
The same technique appears in Chapel Five, which was actually completed before Four. These statues were sculpted elsewhere and placed in the chapel, then painted by Giovanni Battista Fiamminghino, the same man who executed the frescoes on the walls. Perhaps this is why there seems to be so little difference between the two dimensions.
Chapel Six has undergone drastic changes since its design in 1614 by an architect whose name has since been lost. It shows Francis sending his first disciples out to preach and perform miracles. The saint hovers in the background here, whilst brown-robed brothers attend to the physically deformed, a madwoman, lepers and other outcasts. It was always a shocking tableau, but in 1661 it was made even more so by the addition of the most disturbing statues, and by moving the grill forward so that the spectator is now almost thrust into the midst of this suffering humanity.
The Franciscans had made giant strides forward by the year 1210, depicted in Chapel Seven. Here we see twelve disciples and their leader kneeling before Pope Innocent III, who is entirely against approving this order of upstart renegades. But then the prelate dreams that the church of Rome falls and is held up only by Francis, and after that he makes them an official order of the Catholic Church. It has often been said that the man who painted these ethereal frescoes, Antonio Maria Crespi, might have gone on to great fame if he had not died of the plague at a young age.
Even though Chapel Eight is one of the simplest on the Sacro Monte, it's perhaps my favorite. You have to stand outside this one and peer in the windows of the polygonal chapel to see Francis riding a chariot drawn by two kicking steeds. Suspended from the ceiling, the chariot rests on a giant red flame. On the ground below are the terrified disciples who, according to legend, were all woken from the same nightmare. I believe this is the only chapel where the designers gave us more than one vantage point.
Francis's beloved Clare finally comes onto the scene in Chapel Nine. She is pure unadulterated Baroque, with her red and blue robes and attendant corona of angels. In frescoes, the future saint is seen gently cutting Clare's tresses. This scene provides a soothing prelude to the horrors of Chapel Ten, where a naked Francis lies on a rock resisting the temptations of several grotesque devils. Umbria and Latium are full of the stony caves where Francis is known to have retreated, sometimes for weeks on end, to grapple alone with his demons. We can only hope that he, too, saw the beautiful angels who here hold a protective hood over his head.
By now we are hopelessly caught up in the dramatic life lived by Francis of Assisi. How happy we are to see him receive his redemption in Chapel Eleven! He kneels humbly before Jesus and Mary, seated on a throne with the Holy Spirit hovering behind them and Archangels at their sides. The two Holy Ones gaze at each other and we can almost hear them conferring with each other: "What do you think, does he deserve it?" "Yes, yes!" we silently scream, and miraculously, they hear us, turn to Francis and give him permission to build the tiny chapel we've all seen inside Santa Maria degli Angeli in Assisi. Now we know why it's called the Church of Holy Mary and the Angels.
Number Twelve is nicknamed the Roman Chapel, because it was paid for by a community of folks from Orta who lived in Rome. Originally it didn't have the present portico, but it had frescoes that have since faded and been covered by rococo paintings executed in 1772. The story told here also involves Christ, who watches from the wall as a statue of Brother Elia tries to convince a statue of Francis to relax the stringent rules of the Order. In the frescoes, Jesus admonishes Elia and backs it up by giving His official blessing to the Franciscan Order. Perhaps it was an outraged devotee who at some point snapped off Elia's forearm - the first sign of vandalism I've seen on the Sacro Monte.
There must be fifty statues in Chapel Thirteen, all crowded into a small round space gawking at Francis as he stumbles through the streets half-naked. One man has even climbed a pole to get a better view! Gaily decked out in the costumes of Assisi's Carnival, they clearly consider this local monk to be half-mad or hopelessly misguided. How different is the thoughtful attention of the Sultan of Egypt, who listens to Francis preaching in Chapel Fourteen. On the walls are exotic animals and locales, and swarthy courtiers in strange attire populate the room. Dating from 1757, this was the last chapel to be built here.
Chapel Fifteen is one of the earliest, as is apparent from its pure classical proportions. The building's lofty position on a rise perhaps further symbolizes the subject matter of the scene within: the physical meeting of Francis and God, as represented by the stigmata. The frescoes dominate this chapel, with the Heavenly Host soaring overhead and a seraphim launching rays of light towards the pitiful statue of Francis, who is alone on the barren mountaintop with a disciple and a few animals. Wherever the rays touch his body - hands, feet and ribs - blood appears.
Structural flaws have kept Chapel Sixteen closed for years, so I wasn't able to see its depiction of Francis returning from the mountain. I'm sure it provides a necessary transition between Fifteen and Seventeen, which is where we see Francis dying. His disciples attend him as he lies quasi-naked on the floor and life swirls around him in the form of children, courtiers and altar boys. His lips are parted, almost as if exhaling his last breath. And thus ends the earthly journey of San Francesco d'Assisi.
But not ours! Next we are invited into an underground chapel where the scene is supposedly one of a pope and a bishop visiting Francis's grave. Well, it's as dark as a tomb down there, so you can't see the illustrious visitors. Not so upstairs, in Chapel Nineteen. Here we come upon a crowd of silent worshippers, simple grandmothers, artisans, farmers, thumb-sucking children, who have gathered at the tomb because it's said miracles are occurring there. They await salvation from their afflictions in hopeful silence.
The far wall of hushed, hopeful Nineteen is actually the altar of Chapel Twenty. Beyond that barrier is St. Peter's, where a large crowd of Ecclesiastical Big Shots, Rich Guys and Global Potentates attend the Pope's Canonization Party. It's a worldly extravaganza, except for two small boys who hold baskets of doves, and for the shadows of the suffering multitude half-hidden behind the glorious altarpiece. Somehow, even though we are virtually surrounded by the glitterati, we can't help feeling a much stronger bond with those humble supplicants, and with the birds flitting among the branches of the trees just outside the door. Like the birds, we are the creatures of Francis now, perhaps for the rest of our lives.
by Kristin Jarratt
Officially, the chapels are open winter weekdays from 9:30 to 4, weekends from 9:30 to 5; summer from 9:30 to 6:30 every day. But if the weather is bad or for any other obscure reason, they may be closed, so we suggest you call ahead to 0322-911-960. To get there, just drive to Lago d'Orta, then follow signs to the town of Orta and the Sacro Monte. The property offers a nice picnic ground, as well as a panoramic bar and a small restaurant. There is no charge to visit the chapels, but each one has a small alms box near the front door where you are welcome to leave an offering. We don't suggest you buy the guidebook unless you are a big fan of statistics.
In recent years, Orta has become a favorite retreat for sophisticated travelers. No wonder - it basically has everything: pristine nature, a charming town with few tourists, several great restaurants and, in the vicinity, a host of designer outlet stores that might make a trip worth it by themselves. It's also less than an hour's easy drive from Malpensa Airport. If you'd like to spend a few pleasant days here, we recommend Villa Crespi, one of the most unique hotels in the world.
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