1

The within Franciscan Tradition1

At the end of the fifteenth century, when are holy in almost all religions where they the Ottoman Empire had made pilgrim- function as geologic mediators between the ages to the Holy Land increasingly difficult divine and the mundane. And in particular (both physically and financially), Franciscan for , the paradigm for all sacred Bernardino Caimi designed a “New Jeru- mountains is La Verna where tradition holds salem” in the mountains of the Val of that St. Francis was stigmatized in 1224. Mir- Northwest , above the town of Varallo, cea Eliade coined the term hierophany (some- to replicate, closer to home, a devotional thing sacred shows itself to us) to explain experience for disenfranchised pilgrims.2 It this kind of “sacred center” which links earth would become the first of a series of fifteen to heaven, the human and the divine, where sacred mountain complexes constructed be- time stands still, where the transcendent can tween the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries be touched.4 And in particular for Francis- in the mountains of Italy’s and cans, the paradigm for all sacred mountains regions. Each complex is based on is La Verna where tradition holds that St. a certain devotional theme, such as the life of Francis was stigmatized in 1224. The material Christ, the , or the Mary, and setting also allows for a productive tension most, but not all, were founded and main- between the physical and metaphysical exer- tained by Franciscans. These Sacri Monti tion that is at the heart of the ex- string a series of chapels, containing perience. As in private devotional practices, and statuary, across the face of a mountain in the entire body is enlisted to make the expe- a narrative . As such, they are mas- rience as fulfilling as possible, for climbing sive multi-media projects to provide a direct the mountain is a physically strenuous activ- affective Christian experience. There are now ity that itself demands commitment. nine Sacri Monti in that have Each of the Italian Sacri Monti is made up been designated as UNESCO World Herit- of a series of chapels; inside each chapel the age Sites (see Fig. 1), and the Sacro Monte di pilgrim finds life-size sculptural depictions of Orta, with its twenty chapels narrating the a Station of the Cross, a point on the Rosary, spiritual life of St. Francis of , is one of an event in the life of Christ, Mary, or Francis these nine.3 (whatever the particular focus of the Sacred It is certainly not a coincidence that these Mountian). The earlier figures were carved sacred complexes were consistently estab- out of wood, and later ones molded out of lished on remote mountain tops. Mountains terracotta or plaster, with color, real hair and

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Fig. 1. Map of the Nine UNESCO World Heritage Sacri Monti in Italy. Copyright Atlas Kinzel.

glass eyes applied. The earliest chapels were Popular culture simple, open, box-like rooms, in which the visitor could walk among the figures; later The Sacro Monte di Orta represents a par- ones were larger and more complex, with ticular moment of the intersection of high more figures populating them. Since the and popular religion in which the Catholic mid-sixteenth century, the pilgrim has been Church made use of images in its efforts to kept at a distance behind iron or wooden shape lay piety. This Sacred Mountain is thus screens often pierced with peepholes placed powerful, public, popular art which has been at ideal viewing points. In addition, the back an artistic, historical, and even literary wit- and side walls are painted in illusionistic ness to the aesthetics of northern Italian cul- frescos that further reinforce the impression ture over more than four centuries. that one is beholding historical events being Although many critics consider these acted out. The artistic program creates levels spaces merely manifestations of outdated of framing. The life-size statues are set as if popular culture, they were and still are vis- on the depth of a stage; where the ited by tens and even hundreds of thousands stops against the wall, takes up and every year.6 At the height of its popularity, uses its devices to continue the illusion of the site at Varallo had up to ten thousand pil- the staged event into a farther depth. These grims daily.7 Even today in the summer, there tableaux with their intense realism, or what are enough visitors to Orta that a tourist Roberta Panzanelli calls “hyperreality,”5 come tram stays busy ferrying people up and down very close in spirit to late medieval theatrical the mountain. Despite this sustained appe- representations and to Francis’ own teaching tite for Sacri Monti, appreciation for them methods. has languished in “art’s outskirts.”8 Interre- lated artistic objections to the sites are re- sponsible for this disregard: a general disdain for their blunt didacticism, their “grotesque”

26 the sacro monte di orta within franciscan tradition

or “vulgar” style, and their “popularity.” To- gently collect together the names, character, day, didacticism “has a strongly negative con- and pastoral actions of their predecessors.” notation; it designates works that are too Local antiquarians dedicated themselves to close to propaganda to be artistically valid.”9 the recovery of historical precedents in or- Modern readers, attuned to irony and am- der to support their local devotional prac- biguity, are trained to assume that an artful tices, cults, and legends.14 But the art of the story cannot be unambiguous. The agenda of Sacri Monti was not exclusively popular nor these tableaux is to allow viewers to experi- aimed solely at one particular group. The so- ence “Truth” concretely, so it is necessary for cial background of visitors has in fact always us to examine our prejudices about the place been very mixed. While there is no doubt of didacticism in fictional representations in that most early pilgrims belonged to the order to understand and appreciate the art of lower strata, the early audiences also includ- the Sacri Monti. ed members of aristocratic and humanistic In addition, the distinctive heterogeneous circles.15 Alessandro Nova has demonstrated aspects of the art of the Sacri Monti which the especially close rapport between the Mil- fascinated early visitors have attracted later anese aristocracy and the Franciscan Obser- disdain. Real hair, glass eyes, and “ready- vants (and subsequently the Capuchins) who mades” such as clothing, toys, kitchen imple- oversaw many of the sites.16 It seems, then, ments and furniture intensified the verisi- that the sites were able to speak simultane- militude and turned, in Nevet Dolev’s words, ously to audiences of differing critical back- “a second-hand reality into a second reality.”10 grounds and had the capacity to address However, situations in which “real” objects the well-educated few without ignoring the (re)presented themselves also have been con- needs and experiences of both literate and il- demned as a breach of artistic faith, overly literate lay viewers. Of course, scorn for the dramatic, and garish.11 Even the use of terra- vernacular character, of either audience or cotta statuary at the Sacri Monti was cause medium, of the Sacri Monti did not faze the for disdain. Terracotta, a perfectly acceptable Franciscans; the goal was to reach as many medium for sculpture in fourteenth-century people as possible, in the most effective way Italy and popular through the fifteenth centu- possible, to advance their message. ry, became, by the sixteenth century, scorned as the base material of artisans rather than Catholic Reformation artists, at best suited to preliminary models rather than the finished work of art.12 Indeed, The Catholic Reformation was promoted in Bruce Boucher describes the Sacri Monti as its own time as a period of peace, prosper- “the last great expression of the tradition of ity, and cultural revival. But in the twentieth terracotta statuary,” a concept that elsewhere century it was often held responsible for “a had become “obsolete.”13 Thus, in many ways closed, hierarchical, authoritarian conform- these works are a decidedly different kind of ism” which turned art “into a propagandistic art from the classical works that populated base for the absoluteness of its doctrine.”17 elite private collections of Milan and Flor- The Sacri Monti can in fact be viewed both ence. ways, as important works of art which also A third complaint about the Sacred represent religious and political agendas. Re- Mountains is that they were created for a affirming itself as the center of Christendom, purely popular and unsophisticated audi- the assertively tried to re- ence. It is true that Borromeo explicitly tried claim its margins. to build upon the culture of the local audi- Annabel Wharton points out that the ence. In 1573, at the Third Provincial Synod, nineteenth-century British traveller and au- Carlo Borromeo instructed to “dili- thor Butler advanced the idea that

27 sacred views of saint francis

Sacri Monti may have been built “as a Catho- Monche Eulenspiegel und Alcoran (1542) was a lic bulwark against northern dissent.”18 In compendium of extracts from De Conformi- 1888, Butler wrote of Varallo: tate glossed with satirical commentary and quickly translated into Latin,21 French, Flem- It was an attempt to stem the torrent of ish, and English; the flow of Protestant “edi- reformed doctrines already surging over tions” continued to appear until the middle many an Alpine pass, and threatening of the seventeenth century.22 Alber’s critique a moral invasion as fatal to the spiri- was aimed both at some of the ludicrous ex- tual power of as earlier physical amples in the text, and at its theological as- invasions of Northmen had been to her sumptions. Its intent is made clear by the material power.19 frontispiece of the English translation:

However, Wharton has argued that the Sacri The Alcoran of the Franciscans, or, A Monti were begun too early to be a reaction sink of lyes and blasphemies. Collected to Luther (whose “Ninety-Five Theses” were out of a blasphemous book belonging to publicized in 1517). Focusing her study on that order, called the book of the con- Varallo, the earliest of the Sacri Monti (built formites: with the epistles of Dr Martin between 1491 and 1640), she argues that the Luther, and Erasmus Alberus, detecting flow of ideas went in the other direction, the same: formerly printed in Latine, and that the Sacri Monti contributed to the and now made English, for the discovery northward flow of a Franciscan-inspired of the blasphemies of the Franciscans a “theology of the cross.”20 Wharton is wise considerable order of regulars amongst in emphasizing the importance of cross-fer- the papists. 23 tilization of ideas during this voluble time. Nevertheless, by the time the Orta chapels The Scottish humanist George Buchanan il- were begun almost a hundred years later, lustrated the international quality of the Eu- Lutherans and Waldensians were powerful ropean Reformation. One of his first pieces movements within a large group of Protes- was the Somnium, a satire on the Franciscans tant agitators just across the border from and monastic life. It was followed by Fran- Piedmont and Lombardy. There were clearly ciscanus, a critique of Bartholomew, which propagandistic salvos from both faith groups was made into a drama and presented before aimed at the other, and Sacro Monte di Orta James V, his queen, and courtiers at Linlith- was a key player. gow Palace on Epiphany of 1539.24 The Protestant Reformation posed a The exaltation of Francis was emblematic number of challenges to Catholic belief and of the veneration of the which was an- practice which are central to the didactic other important point of criticism directed programs of Orta’s chapels. For example, at Roman Catholicism by the Protestant Francis’ practice of imitatio Christi and sub- Reformation of the sixteenth century.25 Early sequent Franciscan claims that he was alter reformers Wycliffe and Hus first expressed Christus were the focus of Protestant critique. doubts about the dogma of saints’ venera- The work of Franciscan Bartholomew of tion, but the issue became especially promi- Rinonico [sometimes called Bartholomew of nent with Luther, who reinterpreted the Pisa, not to be confused with Bartholomew “communion of saints” in the Apostle’s Creed Albizzi (of Pisa)],’s De Conformitate Vitae Beati to mean the body of believers.26 In response Francisci ad Vitam Domini Jesu (c. 1385), which to these criticisms the Council of Trent en- contrived dozens of parallels between the life acted restraints on indulgences, though the of and that of Francis, was ridiculed Catholic response centered on the problem by reformers. Erasmus Alber’s Der barfusser of abuse and not the essential soundness of

28 the sacro monte di orta within franciscan tradition the doctrine. Veneration of saints, pilgrim- reforms. In 1565, soon after the close of the age, indulgences, the , and the Council of Trent and upon the death of his power of the were all upheld. The very maternal uncle, Pope Pius IV, twenty-seven- issue of indulgences presented the faith- year-old Carlo returned from Rome to Milan ful with a conundrum: if Christ died for all prepared to give full attention to his eccle- mankind, and the benefits of his passion have siastical responsibilities.29 Before returning already been applied, why do they need to be to the north of Italy, Borromeo had worked accessed once again? The didactic agendas of on various architectural projects including the chapels at Orta are an answer to these explorations of the newly discovered Chris- and other critiques. tian catacombs, which helped to develop his sense of a prototype for sacred architecture.30 The Council of Trent and the Borromeos Wietse de Boer describes Borromeo’s inten- tion to overhaul completely the teaching and The religious climate which sustained the practice in the Milanese region as an “ex- production of the Sacri Monti of North- traordinary social experiment” that sought ern Italy began with the Council of Trent “to transform the social order by reaching (1545–63) and subsequent efforts to enforce into the consciences of its subjects” through its proclamations. The Council, which met “a system of discipline that was comprehen- with the aim of purifying the Catholic faith, sive, consistent, and unswerving.”31 Reforma- considered the correct use of religious art tion of the arts became one of his special con- an important tool of internal revitalization. cerns. His series of written pronouncements The question of icons and figures has been demonstrate that the central reality for the a contentious one in Christianity, and the Borromean reform is a consistency between Second Council of Nicaea (787 CE) took the word preached, the art viewed, and the the official position that images of “the fig- pastoral ministries of baptism, confession, ure of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ, and .32 of our spotless Lady, the Mother of God, of Despite the decisions of the Council of the Honorable Angels, of all the saints and Trent, quarrels over the use of religious im- of all pious people” are essential to Christian agery continued to surface, culminating in worship.27 In 1563, the Twenty-fifth Session intense attacks by iconoclastic Protestant of the Council of Trent issued a statement reformers in the sixteenth century. In Italy’s reiterating these ideals in “On the Invoca- Piedmont, efforts to thwart the Protestants tion, Veneration, and Relics of Saints, and on were especially vigorous. In 1532 the Walden- Sacred Images.” Specifics on the production sians voted to unite with the Calvinists in and use of the art were laid out, insisting that Geneva, and Catholics and Protestants killed all religious art programs should stay focused each other across the Alpine borders.33 Later, on the official Truth. The had the role in response, a Vatican decree ruled that ar- of approving sacred works of art and mak- chitecture and art were to be used “to draw ing sure that art left no room for accidentally the line against Protestantism.”34 errant readings and potential heresy.28 As a In 1573 and again in 1576 Borromeo result of the Council of Trent, the desire to warned that those who did not conform to revitalize sacred space and its decorations for his reform measures regarding painting and devotional practice created a flowering of sculpture would be heavily fined, clergy as visual piety. well as artists. He ordered that, “in order that As a cardinal and Archbishop of Milan bishops might more easily execute these and (1564–1584), Carlo Borromeo was the most other prescriptions of the Council of Trent, influential reformer in the Catholic Refor- let them call together the painters and sculp- mation drive to implement the Tridentine tors of their diocese and inform all equally

29 sacred views of saint francis

about things to be observed in produced been called Federico’s “Christian Optimism” sacred images.”35 Soon after, in 1577, he pub- was the second wave of Catholic Reformation lished the first full treatise regarding sacred thought and appealed to a sensory apprecia- art and architecture, including a summary tion of nature in order to attract contem- of Catholic traditions regarding church de- plative minds to Catholic truth.39 With this sign, in Instructiones Fabricae et Supellectilis vision, Federico founded what would eventu- Ecclesiasticae. This became the central docu- ally become the famous Biblioteca Ambrosi- ment that applied the decrees of the Coun- ana of Milan. In the academy’s rules of 1620 cil of Trent to the design and furnishing of he explained that he created the gallery and Catholic churches. Two chapters and por- library in order to teach aspiring artists how tions of others identify directives regarding to reform sacred art in accordance with the the use of decoration, religious images, relics, decrees of the Council of Trent. Federico’s and graphic inscriptions. Part 17, bearing the conception of sacred art’s efficacy demanded lengthy name that it be “natural” in order to reflect Chris- tian truth while appealing to the senses.40 Sacred images and pictures The lakeside towns ringing northern Ita- what is to be avoided and observed in ly’s all bear the imprint of the sacred images noble Borromeo family: land, water, islands, the dignity of sacred images gardens, architecture, castles, churches, even the symbols of the saints grand hotels. At the southern end of the lake places unsuitable for sacred pictures in the port of Arona stands the thirty-five- the ceremony of blessing images meter (115 feet) copper statue of San Carlo. occasional inscription of saints’ names Erected in 1624, this huge hollow statue has accessories and additions for ornamenta- interior stairs which lead the visitor to the tion top. From there, one can look out through votive tables ... the saint’s eyes at a panorama of the coun- tryside. This literal imposition of Borromeo’s has been called “a veritable manifesto against gaze upon his domain reifies the power of artistic license.”36 Borromeo prescribed the his reforming vision, which transformed the content (historical truth or valid theological religious life of northern Italy following the teaching) and the viewer response (evoca- Council of Trent.41 tion of piety) for sacred works of art.37 In this It is in this time that a second genera- way, the cardinal was a decidedly hands-on tion of Sacri Monti flourished in the region, micromanager, and surely a surprise to his inspired by Varallo and spurred on by “the diocese after decades, even centuries in some militant Counter-Reformation values propa- cases, of absentee benefice holders. Acting as gated in the archdiocese of Milan” under the apostolic visitor, appointed by the pope, he auspices of the Borromean cousins.42 While imposed his vision on multiple churches and the idea of the Sacri Monti dates prior to institutions which had previously been left to the Council of Trent, and, indeed, the Sacro follow their own desires.38 Monte di Varallo was well established by that Carlo Borromeo died in 1584, and in 1589 time, the imagery and didactic effect that he was succeeded in Milan by his cousin they project was in fact perfectly matched Federico Borromeo. The lengthy program of with the programmatic intentions develop- renovating and constructing churches begun ing from Tridentine and Borromean ideals. in Carlo’s administration necessarily contin- Carlo was both patron and pilgrim to the ued in later years. Coming a generation later, , which represents the Federico nuanced, but did not change, his life of Christ. Federico was especially inter- sainted cousin’s didactic program. What has ested in two other Sacri Monti, one at Arona

30 the sacro monte di orta within franciscan tradition

devoted to the life of San Carlo and the oth- tant with the general renewal of the Catholic er, based on the Mysteries of the Rosary, at Church. As such the shrines may be seen as .43 a visual manifestation of religious revitaliza- The Borromean cousins demonstrated in- tion and reaffirmation. The Capuchins were terest in the Sacri Monti both for their theo- reformers, rigorously pursuing a “perfect imi- logical implications and for their real pres- tation of St. Francis and complete fidelity to ence as pilgrimage destinations. Carlo had his every intention.”47 The Order of the a passion for making to Italy’s Minor Capuchin was established in 1520 by sacred shrines; one of his biographers has Matteo da Bascio. This new movement was written that “he considered pilgrimage a val- an outgrowth of the Observant tradition uable element in that grand design of coun- that, in turn, developed from the Spiritu- ter-reform which was the real program of all als. Though the three movements are distin- his pastoral activity.”44 Carlo wrote, “even guishable from each other, they all claimed though in our unhappy times, when the reli- to recapture and emulate the lifestyle first es- gious exercise of making pilgrimages has di- tablished by their founder, St. Francis of As- minished to so great an extent, you must not sisi (1181–1226). To this end, the Capuchin’s become tepid, my dearest brethren, but you adopted robes with a capuche (an elongated must become more enkindled because this is pointed hood or cowl from which they de- precisely the time when real Catholics and rive their name) following early sources that obedient sons of the church show the zeal depict Francis in robes of that style.48 For of their faith and piety.”45 For the pilgrim, Francis the robe was not mere fashion; it rep- the experience of the Sacri Monti evokes the resented the Tau, the Greek form of the last multivalent aspects of pilgrimage and makes letter of the Hebrew alphabet (Tav), a cruci- an ideal model for Tridentine visual piety. As form symbol of inspired by Dee Dyas has noted, from the fourth century, 9:4: “And Yahweh said to him, ‘Go through the term “pilgrimage” came to refer to a jour- the city, through , and put a mark ney with a particular religious goal; the pil- [tav] on the foreheads of the men who sigh grim is someone who is taking either a literal, and cry over all the abominations that are physical trip to a place which grants special done within it.’” As expressed in his Testa- access to God, a “vortex” of power, or the pil- ment, doing penance was the foundation of grim is experiencing one piece of a lifelong Francis’ spiritual life, part of his raison d’être, spiritual practice.46 At the Sacri Monti, the and the Tau was his standard.49 The Capu- tensions between these two kinds of pilgrim- chins were further inspired by the physicality age are mediated in one space. Here the pil- of discipline, devotion, and suffering found grim takes a symbolic journey and worships in 1 Corinthians 9:27, 2 Corinthians 4:10, and at a symbolic relic, but they can nevertheless Colossians 1:24. They earned a reputation for replicate the benefits of the real concrete ex- their dedication to spiritual growth through perience. All Sacri Monti are a facsimile of bodily mortification and, through bodily something else which provides the opportu- mortification, an internal mortification of nity for an interior journey, undertaken in the self in pursuit of union with God:50 common with others. Their sufferings were a balm for their St. Francis and the Capuchin Reform consciences. Being pilgrims and strang- ers on earth, without even a cup of Many of the Sacri Monti were built under water, they relished their sufferings with the aegis of and managed by Franciscans dur- delight. They found in them the occasion ing a period of great Franciscan popularity, for acts of penitence for the love of God, led by the Capuchin reform and concomi- and for the observance of holy poverty

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and the Rule they had promised to fol- with eagerness and affection.”53 Numerous low.51 observers confirm the power of Francis’ ac- tions more than his words. , in The Re- But in addition to severe austerity, the Capu- membrance of the Desire of a Soul (also known chins also embraced Francis’ missionary work as Second Life of St. Francis), reports that “A among the general population and impor- physician and learned and eloquent man tantly, particularly for their long-term suc- once said ‘I remember the sermons of other cess, his recognition of papal authority. And preachers word for word, only what the saint their adaptation of the primitive life to allow Francis says eludes me. Even if I memorize for ecclesiastical studies followed along the some of his words, they don’t seem to me like lines of those established at the Council of those that originally poured from his lips.”54 Trent (as reflected in the intellectual depth From Celano’s two accounts of Francis’ min- of the artistic program at the Sacro Monte istry, we see that Francis, in speaking with his di Orta). Thus the Capuchin Reform worked followers, did use a number of genres that we within the traditional orthodox parameters recognize: framed tales, dream visions, meta- of the Catholic Church—with its permission phors and of course sermons. The content of and blessing.52 his sermons, however, are major gaps, lacunas In a sense the Sacri Monti may be under- in the text, for the content is never reported, stood as a Franciscan institution, like the only that he always spoke “simply.” Third Order, whose purpose was to popu- The most typical of Francis’ devices was larize, in the best sense of the word, the the teaching tableau. By this we mean that great tradition of monastic spirituality. The Francis mindfully created scenes calculated Franciscans were especially adept at what to teach by their stunning visual impact. He we would now call “outreach,” having been made himself a concretely accessible example founded as a mendicant order working and to others, who were then expected to interact living among hoi polloi, particularly the im- with him in a great variety of ways. Francis poverished. St. was a teacher was a dramatist, the king of drama. This form of great renown, famous for the humble sim- of teaching extends itself to the representa- plicity of his preaching and pastoral care. He tional in a number of ways, including artistic is still revered today, by both Catholics and reproduction. His carefully crafted teaching non-Catholics, for his love of all creation— moments are impressive, graphic, and indeed from lepers to Brother Sun to the lowly wolf. scenic, although some might strike us today Some preconceptions we have about St. as over the top. We are told that, celebrating Francis and his teaching might be colored by Christmas in the stable at Greccio, he pro- our knowledge of the ’s legendary repu- nounced the word in imitation tation as emulated by the great Franciscan of a bleating lamb.55 This was, in fact, in the missionary and preacher Bernadino of context of creating the first crèche; not con- (1380–1444) as well as by Chaucer’s rather in- tent to simply read or preach the nativity of famous friar in the Canterbury Tales. But in Jesus, Francis orchestrated a reenactment. In recounting Francis’ life, Thomas of Celano this emphasis on the deed, Francis is both an (1185–1265), Francis’ first biographer, demon- innovator and participant in his age. strates that the great teacher did not in fact Caroline Walker Bynum has illustrated teach in the conventional sense of just lec- the theoretical centrality of teaching by ex- turing or preaching, while the Brothers Leo, amples in the twelfth century. The idea that Angelo, and Rufino, compliers of the thir- a preacher should corroborate in his own life teenth-century Legend of the Three Companions the moral teaching he gives to his flock came : “Everything that he said to them in down to the twelfth century through the word, however, he would show them in deed Church Fathers from the New Testament it-

32 the sacro monte di orta within franciscan tradition

self and thus in eleventh- and twelfth-centu- dramatic tradition of representing Francis ry literature, the prevalence of “imitation of that continues hundreds of years later in the example” was significant.56 “To evangelize was Sacri Monti of Italy. Sacri Monti are dos- to offer a pattern [of behavior] to others,”57 sals transferred from the canvas to the face and while it was a universally accepted ideal, of mountainous landscape. In doing so, they few religious make themselves an example as create a pilgrimage experience for worship- enthusiastically and as inventively as Francis. pers who seek a model that simultaneously According to Bynum, Francis “sums up not shapes both “outer person” (behavior) and only the twelfth-century emphasis on emo- “inner person” (soul). tion and inner change in his mystical rav- ishment, but also the stress on imitation in Franciscan Devotion that ultimate imitation, the reception of the .”58 What he was (his example) and Affective devotion as performed at Orta has a what he did (his word) coincided. In Fran- strong affinity with longstanding Franciscan cis, as Celano saw him, the individual who practice. Simulacra are devotional objects or rebels against the world becomes the pattern sites that depend for their effect on the view- for the world. Francis embodied, according er’s controlled access to a highly illusionistic, to Erich Auerbach, “in exemplary fashion, even literalistic, representation of a sacred the mixture…of sublimitas and humilitas, of story. Francis’ own didactic methods laid the ecstatically sublime immersion in God and foundation for the characteristic Franciscan humbly concrete everydayness—with the re- interest in such concrete devotion. As men- sulting irresolvable fusion of action and ex- tioned previously, the most typical of Francis’ pression, of content and form.”59 devices was to create teaching moments with This “exemplarism” is uniquely active—for stunning visual impact and to craft himself as “to be exemplary is to be exemplary to others; a concretely accessible example. Stephen Jae- it is to perform for an audience expected to ger argues that the twelfth century was an age interact with the exemplary.”60 With this type whose mentality derived its values from char- of teaching, as Andrew Ladis notes, there was ismatic presences. Francis is clearly such a an aesthetic element, one that in turn gave person: “The living presence of the teacher is impetus to Italian Franciscan painting.61 And the curriculum. The personal aura is the locus as Bradly Franco describes, the visual arts of pedagogy, and the language of the body is were vital to the Franciscans, “as depictions its medium. The charismatic teacher ushers of the life and of Francis were, to- the student into the charged field of his per- gether with vernacular preaching, the prima- sonality and transforms him, demiurge-like, ry method through which the friars propa- into a little copy of himself.”64 Under this in- gated their message and explained the order’s fluence, then, Carroll argues that the mission to the laity.”62 In Giotto’s thirteenth- Christocentric Catholicism of the reforming century Francis cycle of the Upper Basilica of church, through the preaching orders, used Assisi, for example, the of the Spring, dynamic images associated with particular Preaching to the Birds, St. Francis Renouncing narratives, rather than the static miraculous his Father, and Francis’ Trial by Fire are, among images, that is images “not associated with others, uniquely discrete, dramatic episodes a commonly known story,” popularly vener- easily captured in single panels in which ated in Italy.65 word, deed, and meaning could be simply Four texts, written at nearly hundred year conveyed. In the same way, dossals of Fran- intervals, show the continuity found in Fran- cis’ life, such as the Bardi and Pescia dossals, ciscan exemplary devotion. St. ’s draw on the exempla of his teaching.63 Both The Soliloquium: A Dialogue on the Four Spir- the narrative cycles and dossals establish a itual Exercises (c. 1260) was written for a gen-

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eral audience and, in the form of a dialogue By the 16th century, Jesuit Ignatius of Loy- between the soul and the homo interior, leads ola’s Spiritual Exercises (1548) is the outstand- the reader through various paths of reflection ing example of what came to be called devotio with the goal of using contemplation as a moderna. While it is different from some old- means know and experience God’s love.66 Bo- er forms of mystical contemplation, it clearly naventure invokes the sense of sight repeat- has roots in traditional Franciscan practice. edly, as he calls the reader to vividly see Mary Loyola encourages the creation of vivid and “reclining with her little one in the manger,” concrete imagery; he constantly stresses the “worriedly fleeing with him from the face of importance of “seeing the place”—and this Herod into Egypt,” “wailing, crying out and seeing amounts to a sort of mental exercise complaining,” and “lamenting tearfully,” in that enabled the imagination to clothe an an emotionally wrought description crafted idea with visible form. The success of the to bring about an affective response through meditation depended upon the penitent’s contemplation.67 Meditatione Vitae Christi, ability to produce a clear and distinct im- generally attributed to the Italian Francis- age of the subject so that the image could be can John of Caulibus and written sometime studied, retained, and used in the future as between 1346 and 1364, became immediately a guide to conduct. Every “composition” had influential.68 The overall structure of the text two parts: the image and its place. If the sub- divides meditation on the life of Christ over ject was the crucifixion of Christ, then the the seven days of the week, apportioned at image would be the suffering body on the canonical hours of the day, and relies on cross and the place would be the hill outside sensory perception to heighten the overall Jerusalem.72 Sacri Monti artwork functions experience and secure success of the media- as a manifestation of all these devotional tion. Caulibus urges his reader, an unnamed practices, and especially of Loyola’s Spiritual Poor Clare, that “if you truly desire to bear Exercises. As pilgrims approach each chapel, fruit from all this, you are to make yourself they focus meditation on the scene inside, as present to whatever is related as said or and thus it assumes a reality. Each chapel done were by the Lord Jesus as if you were of the Sacro Monte becomes one of Loyola’s hearing it with your own ears, were seeing “compositions of place,” activated when a it with your own eyes, with a total mental visitor looks through the grilles. response.”69 Nicholas Love’s Mirror of the Bless- ed Life of Jesus Christ is the 1410 translation of Imitatio Christi Caulibus’ work into Middle English. On a meditation for Friday, for example, the text Imitatio Christi, or following in Christ’s exam- urges readers to imagine that they are com- ple, has been a significant theological tenet forting the Virgin and apostles, urging them since the earliest centuries of Christianity. to eat and sleep after the burial of Christ.70 One can find it as early as the book of Acts, A fourth text, Zardino de Oratione Fructuoso, which depicts Stephen’s death as an imitation appears in at the end of the fifteenth of Christ’s. It is also apparent in the hermetic century and encourages its readers to project ideal of the , who chose a life of biblical persona, places, and events on real simplicity and poverty of possessions. It was people. The author, Nicolaus of Ausmo, urges the inspiration behind the sixth-century Ben- his audience “to move slowly from episode edictine prohibition against personal owner- to episode, meditating on each one, dwell- ship of property by the monastic brothers.73 ing on each single stage and step of the story” By the High and Late Middle Ages, imitatio by choosing someone well known to them to Christi had become a central spiritual theme represent people involved in the passion.71 for lay and religious both.74 And Francis was, in the words of the medievalist Ivan Gobry,

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“a most fervent imitator.”75 In Francis’ “A Let- Francis’ medieval biographers highlight his ter to the Entire Order”, he appeals to God, likeness to Jesus —his charity, poverty and “that…we may follow in the footsteps of your suffering—from Thomas of Celano (d. 1265), dearly beloved Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who wrote that Francis transformed “into and by your grace alone may arrive at our the very image of Christ,”80 to St. Bonaven- destination in you, O Most High.”76 In the ture (d. 1274), who described Francis as “fixed Earlier Rule, Francis states: “The rule and life with Christ to the cross, in both body and of these brothers is this, namely: ‘to live in spirit,”81 and Bartholomew of Pisa (d. 1361), obedience, in chastity, and without anything who argued that Francis conformed to Jesus of their own, consists of living in obedience, in totality.82 in chastity and without owning anything,’ Celano, a Franciscan, published his Life and to follow the teaching and footprints of of St. Francis in 1228–29. A second biography our Lord Jesus Christ.”77 Gobry writes, “To followed, originally entitled The Remembrance follow Christ is not only to serve him, it is of the Desire of a Soul, but sometimes known as not enough to do his will; it also means be- the Second Life of St. Francis (1246–47). Celano coming like him.”78 And for Francis, the key first developed the theme of the similarity of to becoming like Christ and living the life of Francis to Christ that gave his sainthood a the Gospel was to embrace poverty. Jesus was special significance. In the latter work, Cel- in essence a permanent wanderer; he had no ano characterized Francis’ commitment to home, and “nowhere to lay his head” (Matt the Gospel: 8:20; Luke 9:58). He ordered his disciples to leave behind all possessions, their careers His highest aim, foremost desire, and and even family, to follow him (Matt 4:18– greatest intention was 22, 9:9//Mark 2:14//Luke 5:27–28). When a to pay heed to the holy gospel in all rich man asked about acquiring eternal life, things and through all things, Jesus replied that he should follow the ten to follow the teaching of our Lord Jesus commandments, but additionally, Jesus told Christ him: “Sell all that you own and distribute the and to retrace His footsteps completely money to the poor, and you will have treasure with all vigilance and all zeal, in heaven; then come, follow me.” (Luke 18: all the desire of his soul 18–22//Matt 19:16–21) and all the fervor of his heart.83 Francis took such injunctions to poverty literally. In his Earlier Rule (c. 1221), Francis This commitment to the Gospel life (imi- evoked the words of 1 Timothy 6:8–9 when tatio Christi) was linked inextricably with he enjoined: a life of poverty (both his own and others). Kenneth B. Wolf notes that Francis’ initial Let all the brothers strive to follow the response to his spiritual awakening was to humility and poverty of our Lord Jesus undertake penance “by responding to his [Je- Christ and let them remember that we sus’] call to relieve the sufferings of the poor should have nothing else in the whole and downtrodden.”84 Celano, in his Life of world except as the Apostle says: “having Saint Francis, records: “Then the holy lover of food and clothing, we are content with profound humility moved to the lepers and these.” They must rejoice when they live stayed with them…he was also a helper of the among people considered of little value poor. He extended a hand of mercy to those and looked down upon, among the poor who had nothing and he poured out compas- and powerless, the sick and the lepers, sion for the afflicted.”85 In The Remembrance of and the beggars by the wayside.79 the Desire of a Soul, Celano says of the young Francis:

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Already he was a lover of the poor He was in no way terrified, And his sacred beginning gave a glimpse But was inspired even more vigorously Of what would be fulfilled in the future. To endure martyrdom. He often stripped himself to clothe the The unconquerable enkindling of love in poor. him Although he had not yet made himself For the good Jesus one of them Had grown into lamps and flames of fire, He strove to be like them with his whole That many waters could not quench so heart.86 powerful a love. With the seraphic ardor of desires, Not only did Francis aspire to imitate Christ- Therefore, like poverty and charity, he aspired to be like He was being borne aloft into God; Christ in His suffering. According to tradi- And by compassionate sweetness tion, Francis denied the needs of his body, He was being transformed into Him “Because of the suffering and bitter experi- Who chose to be crucified out of ences of Christ, which He endured for us, he The excess of His love.89 grieved and afflicted himself daily in body and soul to such a degree that he did not treat Francis’ conversion came at a time when ar- his own illnesses.”87 Francis desired to suffer tistic depictions of the crucified Christ be- persecution and death like Christ: came increasingly popular, and a new spirit of naturalism dominated those depictions. In the fervent fire of his charity Gone was the robust and youthful body of He strove to emulate Christ enthroned. Phyllis Justice observes, “it The glorious triumph of the holy martyrs is difficult for modern Christians to imagine in whom a time when Jesus was not perceived as a fig- the flame of love could not be extin- ure for emulation, yet prior to the High Mid- guished, dle Ages, this was so; Jesus was simply too far nor the courage weakened. above the human condition to be imitated.”90 Set on fire, therefore, Now, the weakened, bloody and painfully suf- By the perfect charity which drives out fering body of the Christ engaged believers fear, in an affective devotional experience encour- He desired to offer to the Lord aging them to partake not only of the Pas- His own life as a living sacrifice in the sion but also of the life of Christ.91 Artistic flames of martyrdom depictions of saints changed as well: “Gone is So that he might repay Christ, who dies the early medieval conventional portrait of a for us, saint as miracle worker.”92 Instead we see por- And inspire others to divine love.88 traits of saints, particularly Saint Francis, as an imitation of Christ. This convention was And Francis so identified with the pain of carried through in Renaissance art. the crucifixion that, according to tradition, he received the stigmata as a grace-filled gift Alter Christus of compassionate love: The Christ-like Francis is an established Fran- And although his body was already ciscan theme beginning with Thomas of Cel- weakened ano, in The Life of Saint Francis, who says that By the great austerity of his past life at the death of the saint, he was “conformed And his continual carrying of the Lord’s to the death of Christ Jesus by sharing in His cross, sufferings.”93 While every believer could at-

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tempt imitatio Christi (the endeavour on the part of humans to follow Christ), Francis had actually achieved conformitas Christi (a gift conferred by God of likeness to Christ). For the Friars Minor, Francis was not just an- other saint, but an exceptional being—a ne plus ultra saint—to whom God had granted the stigmata at La Verna, which made him a new Christ: alter Christus. Bonaventure, in the Major Legend of Saint Francis (1260), devel- oped for the first time in unequivocal fash- ion the theme of the similarity of Francis to Christ which gave his sainthood a special sig- nificance. Later texts in the Franciscan hagi- ographical tradition emphasized even more strongly the fact that the life of Francis was indeed a copy of that of the Savior and that, in the words of the author of the Miracula sancti Francisci, composed in the second half of the fourteenth century, “God renewed his Passion in the person of St. Francis.”94 The Sacro Monte of Orta is the most explicitly Franciscan of the Sacri Monti, for it portrays Fig. 2. The pilgrim’s gaze is engaged with that of a ter- the life of the saint, saturated with the pow- racotta statue through a peephole in the iron screen of erful image of Francis as the alter Christus. Chapel XX, Sacro Monte di Orta. The site encourages the pilgrim’s communion with the Christ via the mediation of Francis. life of Francis and the details within those scenes are crafted to deliver a pointedly or- Sacro Monte di Orta thodox message to the viewers, as the subse- quent chapters of this book will address. The decision to build a pilgrimage site on The pilgrim’s journey begins at the base of the heavily forested mountaintop above the the mountain, in the small lakeside town of colorful lake town of Orta was made by the (see Fig. 4). The path to the city in 1583 (see Fig. 3). Abbot Amico Cano- top is winding and fairly steep—it is intend- bio oversaw the design and initial construc- ed to be physically taxing. Toward the sum- tion of the chapels, supported by his own mit, trees line the path to provide a respite of commission of Chapels XVIII, XIX, and shade for the weary pilgrims. A seventeenth- XX.95 By 1593, Carlo Bascàpe, bishop of No- century archway welcomes visitors with an vara, was given supreme authority over the inscription: “Here, in various chapels (we re- construction, and funding came from guilds, late) the life of Francis. Visitor, if you want to organizations, and local families. Brother know who is the author, the author is love,”97 Cleto di Castelletto became the chief (see Fig. 5). As the pilgrim crosses the thresh- architect and designed the layout for the en- old into sacred space, a fountain (c. 1666) and tire park. Bascape’s frequent site visits and a wall shrine (c. 1770?) offer the pilgrim the precise instructions about the content of opportunity to purify both body and spirit each chapel illustrate his meticulous concern (see Figs. 6 & 7). From the entrance, then, about the ways the chapels were to be read.96 the pilgrim proceeds along a well-marked The selection of particular scenes from the devotional path; the paths are lined with

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Fig. 3. Panoramic view of the Sacro Monte di Orta National Park (largely shielded by the dense foliage) with Isola San Giulio and the of Orta San Giulio in the foreground.

Fig. 4. Aerial Map of the area surrounding the Sacro Monte di Orta (left) and of the Sacro Monte itself, with walkways and chapels delineated (right). © Atlas Kinzel.

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Fig. 5. The pilgrim’s approach to the Sacro Monte di Orta and the Entrance Arch along the Via del Sacro Monte.

Fig. 6. Back side of the Entrance Arch (right) and purification Fountain (left). Sacro Monte di Orta.

39 sacred views of saint francis

ing tromp l’oeil wall in a sort of faux terrain that creates the illusion of blending fresco and foreground. In other chapels the artists painted illustrative scenes of biblical or hagiographic stories. These interior walls further reinforce the impression of historical events being acted out. Decorative ceilings, often composed of religious symbols and in- scribed within cartouches, complete the di- dactic program. The chapels as they look today reflect changes in style and content through the long years of construction. The early chapels from the sixteenth century were executed with small, intimate groups of terracotta figures, but towards the middle of the seventeenth century a colorful and dramatic baroque style was introduced. Later, the Lombard painter Stefano Maria Legnani introduced early ex- amples of the rococo style, which typified the additions of the eighteenth century. Later still, the earlier chapels were exten- sively remodelled, such as Chapel XV “Fran- cis Receives the Stigmata” (1580), which was remade in a much newer style in 1783. Thus Fig. 7. Shrine at the entrance to the park with a statue of it happens that any one chapel, because of St. Francis of Assisi. Sacro Monte di Orta. centuries of ongoing renovation, can display numerous artistic styles. vegetation, the lanes are named after natu- Several chapels emphasize the Christo- ral elements mentioned in the Canticle of the centric function of Francis’ life, in keep- Sun (such as the wind and sun; see Chapter 2, ing with the thematic tradition begun by Catalogue of the Chapels, Figs. 81 & 82), and Thomas of Celano. Most notably, Chapel the chapels are numbered sequentially. An I illustrates the way Francis was born in a early seventeenth-century well, an oratory, a stable like Jesus; Chapel X shows him deal- small convent, and the medieval Church of ing with lustful temptation that recalls the St. Nicolao (rededicated in the seventeenth temptations of Christ in Matthew Ch. 4, and century to both St. Nicolao and St. Francis) Chapel XIV shows the reception of stigmata. are also located within the sacred park (see But fully half of the twenty chapels could Figs. 8 & 9). be called “Franciscan chapels” because their Although the original plan at Orta called primary focus is to glorify Francis and the for thirty-six chapels, the complex now con- Order itself. They affirm the orthodoxy of tains twenty completed and one partially Francis, his clear allegiance to the Church’s completed chapel.98 Each individual chapel teachings and hierarchy, and argue for the le- houses life-size, painted terracotta figures gitimate authority of the Order. These Fran- (nearly 400 in all) set as if on a stage and de- ciscan scenes are not unusual—they appear in picts a particular event in the life of St. Fran- all the main biographies of Francis. Some of cis of Assisi. In some chapels the artists fused the most interesting in this regard are Chapel the action of the dioramas with surround- IV, “Francis listens attentively to the Mass,”

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Fig. 8. The Well at the Sacro Monte di Orta.

Chapel V, “Francis gives the habit to his fol- Legend of Saint Francis (1260) superseded these lowers,” and Chapel XVI, “Francis returns to to become the official orthodox account. But Assisi to the acclaim of many.” It is striking, many other compilations and versions exist however, that many of Francis’ important as witnessed by the three-volume Francis of and famous teaching moments concerning Assisi: The Early Documents.99 The ideologi- the essential Christian teachings on faith and cal framework for the subject of each chapel works are missing; preaching to the birds and comes from Bartholomew of Pisa’s De Con- the wolf of Gubbio are among the most no- formitate Vitae Beati Francisci ad Vitam Domini table absences. Jesu.100 This is the fullest expression of the long Franciscan tradition that Francis was Literary and Ideological Sources in all respects conformable to Christ, but Bartholomew goes further with his system- The exact textual sources used for planning atic defence that Francis “conformed” him- the didactic program of Orta are difficult to self to Jesus in every aspect of his life. Every identify. The large number of medieval texts feature of the life and passion of Christ, he written about St. Francis bear witness to how says, was duplicated in Francis. Like his mas- well his life is documented in comparison to ter, Francis was subject to sale, betrayal, the those of other medieval individuals. So much agony in the garden, the binding, mockery, so that we know more about him than almost scourging, crowning with thorns, stripping any other medieval person. Thomas of Cel- of raiment, crucifixion, piercing with a lance ano’s Life of Saint Francis (1228) was the ear- and the offer of vinegar.101 Authorial choices liest biography, followed by his revised and for narratives are made to increase the piety expanded version, The Remembrance of the of the reader rather than to remain faithful Desire of a Soul (1245). Bonaventure’s Major to biographical historicity, and important

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dal P.S. Francesco, written originally in Por- tuguese by Mark of Lisbon (also called Mar- cos da Silva, Bishop of Porto) and eventually edited and printed in Italian in 1582—just as the plans for Orta were being made.104 A copy now resides in the library of the local convent of Orta, called Monte Mesma. The impor- tance of the Croniche is evident from the di- rect quotations from the text found in many cartouches attached to the frescos. Mark’s text was based on the classic sources of the Franciscans including Celano, Bonaventure, and Bartholomew of Pisa among other lesser known Franciscan sources. Above all, Mark relied on Bartholomew’s De Conformitate Vi- tae Beati Francisci ad Vitam Domini Jesu, using it “without the slightest reticence.”105 Thus in addition to its archival function, this lengthy text also proposes ideological correlations which exalt Francis, through biographical comparisons with Jesus, to a level of supra- human similarity to him.

Pilgrims to the Sacri Monti

Fig. 9. Main altar of the Church of St. Nicolao. Sacro Phenomenologically speaking, most world Monte di Orta. religions envision a universe bifurcated into conditioned and unconditioned reality. Vari- events in the lives of both Jesus and Fran- ous rites and practices attempt to bridge the cis are omitted when a correlation cannot gap between the realms. Pilgrimage is one be found or contrived.102 Thus the apparent avenue commonly used by the faithful to fa- reliance at Orta on Bartholomew’s agenda, cilitate that communion. To be sure, and as which privileges these pious correlations, the saying goes, “Not all who travel to Rome seems to have dictated specific scene selec- are pilgrims”: some travelers are tourists; tions from the many available episodes of some look for economic advantage; and, par- Francis’ life.103 Bartholomew’s alter Christus ticularly in the medieval period, some sim- reading remained popular in literature and ply travel as a way of imitating Christ, as a art two hundred years later, partly because form of exile and detachment from earthly of the efforts of dynamic and well-regarded ties akin to the exile of the monastic Desert Franciscan preachers such as Bernardino of Fathers.106 Building on Dyas’ earlier defini- Siena (d. 1444). tion of pilgrimage, Maribel Deitz asserts that It appears, however, that the biographi- pilgrimage is not mere religious wandering: it cal sources and ideological framework of the is rather “goal centered, religious travel for an Sacro Monte di Orta were probably accessed efficacious purpose.”107 The motivations of a through a secondary source. Abbot Amico pilgrim vary. The pilgrimage can be an act of Canobio asks, in a letter dated 1589, for a personal devotion or can be a voluntary obli- text he calls Croniche di San Francesco. This is gation (as in Judaism, Islam, and Hinduism). probably Delle Croniche de gli Ordini Instituiti It can be fulfillment of a vow or mandatory

42 the sacro monte di orta within franciscan tradition as punishment; it can be voluntary or invol- it was through the body that they helped untary penance. Motivation notwithstand- construct a reality in which empirical ing, all pilgrims seek a transformative expe- knowledge overlapped with spiritual rience: atonement, release, personal growth, imagination.109 new connections to a community of faith, or new connections to the divine. Pre-modern art was immersive, and individ- Art often plays a significant role in a pil- uals were invited to experience art with mind grim’s journey. In his clarion call to acknowl- and body, as well as the soul. The same may edge the “visionariness of purpose,” Paul be said equally of art in most eras, with the Barolsky admonishes art historians to keep possible exception of the modern day. Bag- in mind: noli argues, for example, that the contempo- rary museum experience takes “the body out The ultimately apparitional character of of the equation” in favour of an emotionless, devotional art…one rooted in the under- “‘appetiteless’ looking.”110 It is perhaps reflec- standing that illusionism, not developed tive of a broader social trend in which one for its own sake, was the beginning of the finds that even sociopsychological analysts journey of the soul from mere sight to failed to recognize the importance of non- vision. Whether calmly contemplative or verbal communication, particularly sensory ecstatically rapturous, all such devo- perception, until the second half of the twen- tional images were intended, in their very tieth century.111 exemplariness, to elevate the spirit, to Within the context of visual culture, art absorb the worshiper’s mind in God, to criticism and media theory from the mid- direct the devout beholder’s gaze toward twentieth century onward, gaze is understood a realm ultimately beyond what can be as a mode of communication though which seen corporeally in nature, to the divine information is transmitted and refers to psy- truth, which can only be apprehended (as chological and power relations through the the church fathers taught) with spiritual act of looking intently. In an era described, eyes.108 not hyperbolically, as one “based upon a he- gemony of vision,” a study of gaze reveals its As pilgrimage centers, the Sacri Monti role among visual practices in everything provide a direct affective experience at its from identity construction to interpersonal Renaissance best, as the pilgrim is guided power structures.112 It can be analyzed from through prayer and contemplation toward a various perspectives such as the male gaze, fe- spiritual awakening. male gaze, spectator gaze, tourist gaze, and pho- tographer’s gaze. The gaze can be hegemonic, The Pilgrim’s Gaze mutual, or reversed. Morgan writes extensively on the sacred gaze, which he de- Of medieval art, Martina Bagnoli observes: fines as

Knowledge was gained chiefly through a term that designates the particular sensation. Medieval images and objects configuration of ideas, attitudes, and were made to speak to all the senses…. customs that informs a religious act of They operated in a rich sensory world seeing as it occurs within a given cultural that was often integral to their apprecia- and historical setting. A sacred gaze is tion. They were not only seen, but also the manner in which a way of seeing and at the same time, touched, tasted, invests an image, a viewer, or an act of smelled, and heard. The sensory language viewing with spiritual significance.113 they employed appealed to the body, and

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Furthermore, for Morgan such visual piety with the divine. Attentiveness was essential to prayer’s efficacy.119 In the medieval period, consists of a gaze that fixes on the divine the “attention-in-prayer topos” of prayer the- as present. Two specific forms may be ory may be seen at play in devotional images distinguished: a yearning to escape the such as Byzantine icons, wherein bounds of the ego and mingle with the object of the gaze, and a be-holding or the gazes of sacred figures out of the gripping of the Other in the gaze to picture, toward the observer, could surely derive a favor from it. The second, more elicit in the devout…decorous attentive common and less spectacular form of behavior…[and] may have represented beholding is an active beseeching, an the attentiveness of the living God and act of seeing that invites the sacred into his celestial servants to the devotee, mundane existence in order to achieve a and, more particularly, the reassurance particular end such as a healing.114 that the attentive prayer directed in like manner to the prototype would be more In Sacred Views of Saint Francis: The Sacro Mon- efficacious.120 te di Orta, our use of the term pilgrim’s gaze en- capsulates both the notions of be-holding and As with early Christian pilgrims, by the late beseeching located in the particular religious medieval period such visual attentiveness, experiences, expectations, and goals related or what Stuart Clark calls “sacramental see- to the visual aspects of pilgrimage. ing,” elicited a spiritual communion that Amidst the growth of this still relatively was tactile, where “seeing the elevated host, new field of study among social psycholo- the , or sacred images meant touch- gists, we should note that the writers, artists, ing them with one’s own visual rays or being philosophers, and theologians of pre-moder- touched by them.”121 This is paradigmatically nity long recognized the sociopsycological expressed in the Franciscan meditations on power of sight.115 Georgia Frank has studied Christ’s Passion,122 that, in turn, contributed the role of sight in the accounts of Late An- to an increasing naturalism in late medieval tique Christian pilgrims to the Holy Land, Italian art. Jaś Elsner states that naturalistic and written extensively on sight (and touch) verisimilitude encouraged the devout “to as a way of knowing divine presence. It is akin suspend his or her disbelief that the image is to the Hindu concept of darśan, where to see just pigment or stone.”123 Paul Barolsky goes is to touch is to know.116 But even beyond further: knowledge of the divine, for the early Chris- tian pilgrim sight is a mode of participation Naturalistic, devotional art brings the and presence unbounded by time. Through beholder closer to the Holy Spirit by the eye, particularly the “eye of faith,” Chris- rendering its manifestation to the cor- tian pilgrims were able to “witness” events of poreal eye through appearances and, that the biblical past and actually participate in confrontation made, the worshipper is their dramatic unfolding. Frank refers to this encouraged by the image to rise beyond phenomenon as “biblical realism,”117 in which mere appearances to the contemplation the suggestive power of vision facilitates con- of pure spirit. Naturalism is thus not tact and engagement, and “sight manifest[s] an end in itself, but a stylistic means of the reality.”118 rendering spiritual meaning.124 In their prayer treatises, Tertullian, , and Cassian argued that prayer de- Though with the Protestant Reformation, manded postures of attentiveness to facili- the widely accepted efficacy of “’sacramental tate dialogue, communion, and reciprocity seeing’” became fiercely contested, indeed

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the source of “unprecedented confessional and Chapter 2, Catalogue of Chapels, Fig. dispute,”125 Catholics held fast to the impor- 75). There are, typically, multiple sightlines tant devotional role of images and vision. We in each chapel, and each sightline is in turn have previously noted Carlo and Federico guided by architectural cues (such as lighting Borromeo’s leadership in implementing the and framing), by the narrative trajectory of decisions of the Council of Trent on Church the depicted event, and most especially by art, and Frederico’s special concern for natu- the mediating gestures and “eye contact” of ralism in Tridentine art. Their influence is felt the statues themselves. The fixed and per- just as, during the Renaissance, Göttler de- petually sustained gaze of certain figures ar- scribes “a new religious culture of emotion… rest, engage, and beckon the pilgrim into the explored and tested the effects of various vis- scene. ual media on the mind and the senses of the In the interactive space between the dio- devout.” Gottler describes the Sacro Monte rama’s plastic society and living society of of Varallo as “a laboratory where controver- the pilgrim, gazes are exchanged. Power is sial theories of visual and sensual perception transferred from the terracotta figures serv- were developed, introduced, changed, and ing as conduits of enhanced communion changed again.”126 As with the affective ex- within the affective devotional experience, perience of the early Christians in the Holy to the pilgrim who “makes real” and becomes Land, Rudolf Wittkower notes that the real- a participant in the events before them. The ism in the art of the Sacri Monti “evoked in pilgrim is thus positioned kinetically—atten- the beholder the sensation of participating in tively—by the architecture (as with kneelers the actual event.”127 At Orta, aural sensations and grilles)131 and repositioned psychologi- are manipulated in the crowded street scenes cally—also attentively—by the gaze. The con- of Chapel XIII and Chapel XVI, for instance, trolled gaze of the pilgrim does not serve to with representations of neighing horses, alienate but to enhance both a physical and barking dogs, laughing children, and gossip- spiritual journey towards an experientially- ing adults. The herald angels, cherubic musi- based, transformative divine communion: cians, and musical score in the ceiling fresco the pilgrim’s goal. of Chapel XX also promote a sympathetic au- ditory experience. Of course, prior to electri- fication, there would have been the very real olfactory stimuli of candles and smoke (and presumably incense—not to mention body odor—as well) as the pilgrim made their way into each chapel. Visually, and through the use of what Medina Lasansky terms “stereo- scopic viewing,”128 the beholder is immersed in each tableau via illusionistic frescos and life-sized figures modeled after the local in- habitants129 and decorated in contemporary Renaissance-era attire. The oculocentrism of the dioramas is made even more explicit through what Susan Stanbury calls the “oc- ular plot,” wherein gaze directs the “linear drama.”130 At the Sacri Monti, as each scene reenacts a discrete moment in history, the pilgrim’s gaze is controlled by peepholes in the screens, doors and windows (see Fig. 2

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Endnotes (1486), (1589), Sacro Monte di Orta (1583), (1604), 1 Portions of this chapter were previously (1617), Sacro Monte di published as “The Visual Piety of the Sacro Monte Ossuccio (1635), Sacro Monte di (1591), di Orta,” in Finding Saint Francis in Literature and Sacro Monte Calvario di Domodossola (1657), Art, eds. Cynthia Ho, Beth Mulvaney, and John and (1712). See http:// K. Downey (New York: Palgrave, 2009), 109–28. www.whc..org for more information about Used with permission of Palgrave Macmillan. the contribution of the Sacri Monti to World 2 Guido Vannini and Riccardo Pacciani, La Heritage. Gerusalemme di S. Vivaldo in Valdelsa (Montaione: 4 Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the Profane, Comune di Montaione, 1998), 59. Caimi’s trans. Willard Trask (New York: Harcourt, Brace, “New Jerusalem” was created as a topomimetic and World, Inc., 1959). See also Mircea Eliade, experience, a luogo santo, a sacred site simulating Patterns in Comparative Religion, trans. Rosemary in detail the important places of events in Jesus’ Sheed (Lincoln: University of Nebraska, 1996), life. The distances between the chapels were 367–87. reproduced proportionally to the original space 5 Roberta Panzanelli, Pilgrimage in Hyperreality: between locations in and around Jerusalem, Images and Imagination in the Early Phase of the such as Bethlehem and the Holy Sepulchre, and “New Jerusalem” at Varallo (1486–1530), PhD Diss., the topographical location of each chapel was UCLA, 1999. matched to the topography of Holy Land. This 6 See Alessandro Nova, “‘Popular’ Art in notion of “substitutive sacrality” allowed the Renaissance Italy: Early Response to the pilgrim to (affectively) follow in the footsteps Holy Mountain at Varallo,” in Reframing the of Christ. This meant, however, that a pilgrim Renaissance: Visual Culture in Europe and Latin might encounter the events in Christ’s life out America, 1450–1650, ed. Claire Farago (New Haven: of chronological sequence. Thus, as the site Yale University Press, 1995), 113–26. developed the focus shifted from topomimesis, 7 Ibid., esp. 123. with priority to the geospatial locations of events 8 Dolev Nevet, “The Observant Believer as in Christ’s life, to prioritizing a chronological Participant Observer: ‘Ready-Mades’ avant la framework of Christ’s life according to the lettre at the Sacro Monte, Varallo, Sesia,” Assaph: Gospel narratives. In this way, the topography Studies in Art History 2 (1996): 189. D. Medina of Jerusalem did not determine the order of Lasansky echoes this conclusion in “Body Elision: the chapels, rather the pilgrim could easily Acting Out the Passion at the Italian Sacri walk through a chronological progression of Monti,” in The Body in Early Modern Italy, eds. the Christ-centered Gospel accounts. This Julia L. Hairston and Walter Stephens (Baltimore: rerouting eliminated a great deal of confusion. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010), 253–54. On the concept of substitutive sacrality, see Allie 9 Susan Rubin Suleiman, Authoritarian Fictions: Terry-Fritsch, “Performing the Renaissance Body The Ideological Novel as a Literary Genre (New York: and Mind: Somaesthetic Style and Devotional Columbia University Press, 1983), 2–4. Practice at the Sacro Monte di Varallo,” Open 10 Nevet, “The Observant Believer as Arts Journal 4 (Winter 2014–15): 113. For more Participant Observer,” 178. on the redevelopment of Varallo, see Rebecca 11 S.J. Freedberg, Painting in Italy, 1500–1600, Gill, “ and the Redevelopment of Pelican History of Art, 3rd edn. (New Haven: Yale the Sacro Monte di Varallo,” in AID Monuments. University Press, 1993), 393. Conoscere, progettare, ricostruire: Galeazzo Alessi 12 See Bruce Boucher, “Italian Renaissance Architect-Engineer, eds. Caludia Conforti and Terracotta: Artistic Revival or Technological Vittorio Gusella (Rome: ARACHE, 2013), 101–13. Innovation?” in Earth and Fire: Italian Terracotta 3 The nine Sacri Monti, with the year their Sculpture from Donatello to Canova, ed. Bruce construction began, are: Sacro Monte di Varallo Boucher (New Haven: Yale University Press,

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2001), 1–31, and Maria Giulia Barberini, “Base or 24 George Buchanan and George Neilson, Noble Material? Clay Sculpture in Seventeenth- George Buchanan: Glasgow Quatercentenary Studies and Eighteenth-Century Italy,” in ibid., 43–59. 1906 (Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1907), 13 Boucher, “Italian Renaissance Terracotta: 297–301. Artistic Revival or Technological Innovation?” 25 See, for example, Marina Miladinov, “Usage 27–28. of Sainthood in the Reformation Controversy: 14 Simon Ditchfield, Liturgy, Sanctity and Saints and Witnesses of Truth in Mathaias History in Tridentine Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge Flacius Illyricus,” New Europe College Yearbook 10 University Press, 2002), 7. (2002–3): 15–61. 15 See Nova, “‘Popular’ Art in Renaissance 26 , Johannes Wyclif Tractatus de Italy.” ecclesia, ed. Johann Loserth (London: Wyclif 16 Ibid., 114. See also D. Medina Lasansky, Society, 1886). See Robert Swanson, “Passion “Body Elision,” 254–55. and Practice: The Social and Ecclesiastical 17 Eric Cochrane, “Counter Reformation or Implications of Passion Devotion in the Late Tridentine Reformation? Italy in the Age of Middle Ages,” in The Broken Body: Passion Devotion Carlo Borromeo,” in San Carlo Borromeo: Catholic in Late-Medieval Culture, eds. A. MacDonald et al. Reform and Ecclesiastical Politics in the Second Half (Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1998), 11–12. of the Sixteenth Century, eds. John M. Headley and 27 “The Decree of the Holy, Great, Ecumenical John B. Tomaro (Washington, DC: The Folger Synod, the Second of Nicea,” Medieval Sourcebook: Shakespeare Library, 1988), 31–46. Decree of the Second Council of Nicea, 787, ed. Paul 18 Annabel Wharton, Selling Jerusalem: Halsall, Fall 1996, http://sourcebooks.fordham. Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks (Chicago: Chicago edu/halsall/source/nicea2-dec.asp. University Press, 2006), 119. 28 See E. Cecilia Voelker, “Borromeo’s Influence 19 Samuel Butler, Ex Voto: An Account of the on Sacred Art and Architecture,” in San Carlo Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia Borromeo: Catholic Reform and Ecclesiastical Politics (London: Dodo Press, 1888), 43. in the Second Half of the Sixteenth Century, eds. 20 Wharton, Selling Jerusalem, 119–20. John Headley and John Tomoro (Washington, More recently, Geoffrey Symcox has argued DC: Folger Books, 1988), 172–87. See also persuasively that the Sacri Monti “did not serve Benjamin Westervelt, “The Prodigal Son at Santa so much as a barrier against the inroads of heresy, Justina: The Homily in the Borromean Reform of but rather as instruments through which the Pastoral Preaching,” The Sixteenth Century Journal Counter-Reformation clergy sought to canalize 32, no. 1 (2001): 109–26. and discipline popular devotion.” Geoffrey 29 R. Mols, S.J., “Borromeo, Charles, St,” in New Symcox, Jerusalem in the : The Sacro Monte of Catholic Encyclopedia, 15 vols., eds. Thomas Carson Varallo and the Sanctuaries of North-Western Italy and Joann Cerrito (Detroit: Thompson Gale, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2019), 206. 2003), 2:539–41. 21 The Latin translation, Alcoranus Franciscanus, 30 Golda Balass, “Taddeo Zuccaro’s Fresco in is probably the most widely known edition of the Apse-Conch in S. Sabina, Rome,” Assaph: Alber’s work. Studies in Art History 4 (1999): 107. 22 Carolly Erickson, “Bartholomew of Pisa, 31 Wietse de Boer, The Conquest of the Soul: Francis Exalted: De conformitate,” Mediaeval Confession, Discipline, and Public Order in Counter- Studies 34 (1972): 255. Also see Paschal Reformation Milan (Leiden: Brill, 2001), ix. Robinson, The Catholic Encyclopedia(New York: 32 Westervelt, “The Prodigal Son at Santa Robert Appleton Company, 1907), 2:221, s.v. Justina,” 126. Also see Matthew Gallegos, “Carlo “Bartholomew of Pisa.” Borromeo and Catholic Tradition Regarding the 23 Erasmus Alber, The Alcoran of the Franciscans Design of Catholic Churches,” The Institute for (London: L. Curtise, 1679). Sacred Architecture 9 (2004): 14–18, and E. Cecilia

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Voelker, “Borromeo’s Influence on Sacred Art and 42 Symcox, Jerusalem in the Alps, 205. Architecture,” 172–87. 43 See Piero Bianconi et al., Il Sacro Monte sopra 33 For example, in July 1618 the Protestant Varese (Milan: Paolo Zanzi, Gruppo Editoriale party in the Valtellina murdered their Catholic Electa, 1981). opponents and cut the strategic communications 44 Cesare Orsenigo, Life of St. Charles Borromeo, between Milan and the Tyrol, but in another trans. Rudolph Kraus (St. Louis: B. Herder, 1943), coup engineered by the Spanish governor in 302–3. Milan, the Catholic Party there, in turn, rose 45 David Leatherbarrow, Topographical Stories: and massacred Protestants in the so-called Studies in Landscape and Architecture (Philadelphia: Sacro Macello of 1620. For an account of the University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 211. conflict and the Valtellina Massacre, see Randolf 46 Dee Dyas, Pilgrimage in Medieval English Head, Jenatasch’s Axe: Social Boundaries, Identity, Literature, 700–1500 (Suffolk: D.S. Brewer, 2001), 2. and Myth in the Era of the Thirty Year’s War 47 Thaddeus MacVicar, O.F.M Cap., The (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2008), Franciscan Spirituals and the Capuchin Reform, ed. 22–24. See also Peter Cannon-Brookes, Lombard Charles McCarron, O.F.M. Cap. (St. Bonaventure: c1595–c1630: The Age of Federico Borromeo The Franciscan Institute, 1986), 57. (Birmingham: City Museums and Art Gallery, 48 See the multiple attestations of such early 1974), 12. depictions in William Cook’s Images of St. Francis 34 Michael P. Carroll, Veiled Threats: The Logic of Assisi in Painting, Stone and Glass from the of Popular Catholicism in Italy (Baltimore: Johns Earliest Images to ca. 1320 in Italy: A Catalogue, ed. Hopkins University Press, 1996), 186. See also L.S. Olschki (Florence: Olschki, 1999). The artists Roger Aubert, The Church in the Industrial Age of the Sacro Monte di Orta always depict Francis (London: Crossroad, 1981), 288–306, and Sean and his companions in Capuchin robes. O’Reilly, “Roman versus Romantic: Classical 49 Francis of Assisi, The Testament, in Francis Roots in the Origins of a Roman Catholic of Assisi: Early Documents, 3 vols., eds. Regis Ecclesiology,” Architectural History 40 (1997): 223. Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap., et al. (New York: 35 Voelker, “Borromeo’s Influence on Sacred New City Press, 1999–2001), 1:124. This three- Art and Architecture,” 177. volume collection by Armstrong et al. contains 36 Ibid. translations of all the texts from the first one 37 Gallegos, “Carlo Borromeo and Catholic hundred plus years of the Franciscan tradition. Tradition Regarding the Design of Catholic 50 We see evidence of this ascetic devotion Churches,” 14–15. in the numerous visual references to penance 38 Sean O’Reilly, “Roman versus Romantic: and discipline in the chapels at Orta. See, for Classical Roots in the Origins of a Roman example, the ceiling frescos of Chapel III. Catholic Ecclesiology,” Architectural History 40 51 Paul Hanbridge, O.F.M. Cap., trans., The (1997): 222–40, and Giles Knox, “The Unified Capuchin Reform, A Franciscan Renaissance: A Church Interior in Baroque Italy: S. Maria Portrait of Sixteenth- Century Capuchin Life, An Maggiore in ,” The Art Bulletin82, no. 4 English Translation of La bella e santa riforma by (2000): 683–84. Melchiorre da Pobladura, O.F.M. Cap. (Delhi: Media 39 Pamela Jones, “Federico Borromeo as a House, 2003), 39. Patron of Landscapes and Still Lifes: Christian 52 Thaddeus MacVicar, O.F.M Cap., The Optimism in Italy ca. 1600,” The Art Bulletin 70, Franciscan Spirituals and the Capuchin Reform, ed. no. 2 (1988): 268. Charles McCarron, O.F.M. Cap. (St. Bonaventure: 40 Ibid. The Franciscan Institute, 1986), 66–68, 79, 88–89, 41 For a discussion of the Borromean influence 98–99, for example. on art, see de Boer, The Conquest of the Soul,and 53 Legend of the Three Companions, in Francis of Voelker, “Borromeo’s Influence on Sacred Art and Assisi: Early Documents, 2:101. Architecture,” 172–87.

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54 Thomas of Celano, The Remembrance of the of the Arts to Theology,trans. Zachary Hayes, Desire of a Soul, in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents O.F.M. (St. Bonaventure: Franciscan Institute 2:318. Publications, 1996), esp. 1–2, 45–47, 49–53. 55 Thomas of Celano, The Life of Saint Francis, in 67 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, “The Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 1:256. Soliloquium,” 338–39. 56 Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: 68 C. Mary Stallings-Taney, “The Pseudo- Studies in Spirituality of the High Middle Ages Bonaventure ‘Meditaciones vite Christi’: Opus (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982), Integrum,” Franciscan Studies 55 (1998): 253–80. 95–106. For a recent discussion on the authorship of the 57 Ibid., 90. text, see Sarah McNamer, “The Debate on the 58 Ibid., 105–6. Origins of the Meditationes vitae Christi: Recent 59 Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation Arguments and Prospects for Future Research,” of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard Archivum Franciscanum Historicum 111, nos. 1–2 Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, (July 2018): 65–112. 2013), 163. 69 Stallings-Taney, “The Pseudo-Bonaventure 60 Hester Goodenough Gelber, “A Theater of ‘Meditaciones vite Christi’,” 272. Virtue: The Exemplary World of St. Francis of 70 Meditations on the Life of Christ: An Illustrated Assisi,” in Saints and Virtues, ed. John Stratton Manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, trans. Hawley (Berkeley: University of California Press, Isa Ragusa and Rosalie B. Green (Princeton: 1987), 15. Princeton University Press, 1961); Nicholas Love, 61 Andrew Ladis, Introduction to Giotto and Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ: A Critical the World of Early Italian Art: An Anthology of Edition, ed. Michael G. Sargent (New York: Literature, vol. 4: Franciscanism: The Papacy, and Art Garland, 1992). in the Age of Giotto: Assisi and Rome, ed. Andrew 71 Nevet, “The Observant Believer as Ladis (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1998), Participant Observer,” 180. 88. 72 , Ignatius of Loyola: Spiritual 62 Bradley R. Franco, “The Functions of Early Exercises and Selected Works, Classics of Western Franciscan Art,” in The World of St. Francis of Spirituality, ed. George E. Ganss, S.J. (New York: Assisi: Essays in Honor of William R. Cook, eds. Paulist Press, 1991). Also see Leatherbarrow, Bradley R. Franco and Beth Mulvaney (Leiden: Topographical Stories, 213. Brill, 2015), 19. 73 Lee Palmer Wandel, “The Poverty of Christ,” 63 See Franco, “The Functions of Early in The Reformation of Charity: The Secular and Franciscan Art,” 19–44. Religious in Early Modern Poor Relief, ed. Thomas 64 Stephen Jaeger, “Charismatic Body– M. Safley (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 15–29, at 16. Charismatic Text,” Exemplaria 9, no. 1 (1997): 122. 74 Catherine Mooney, “Imitatio Christi 65 Carroll, Veiled Threats, 80. or Imitatio Mariae? and her 66 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, “The Interpreters,” in Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints Soliloquium: A Dialogue on the Four Spiritual and Their Interpreters,ed. Catherine Mooney Exercises,” in Works of St. Bonaventure: Writings (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, on the Spiritual Life, vol. 10: Writings on the 1999), 53. Spiritual Life, ed. Edward Coughlin, O.F.M. (St. 75 Ivan Gobry, Saint Francis of Assisi: A Bonaventure: Franciscan Institute Publications, Biography (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2006), 2006), 214–15. See also Bonaventure’s On the 217. Reduction of the Arts to Theology,where he argues 76 Francis of Assisi, “Letter to the Entire that all knowledge is, at its essence, theological Order,” in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 1:121. wisdom which in turn leads the origin of all 77 Francis of Assisi, Earlier Rule, in Francis of things—God’s love—and to union with God: Assisi: Early Documents, 1:63–64. Works of St. Bonaventure, vol. 1: On the Reduction 78 Gobry, Saint Francis of Assisi, 217.

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79 Francis of Assisi, Earlier Rule, in Francis of 94 André Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Assisi: Early Documents, 1:70; I Timothy 6:8–9. Ages, trans. Jean Birrell (Cambridge: Cambridge 80 Thomas of Celano, The Remembrance of University Press, 1997), 114. the Desire of a Soul, in Francis of Assisi: Early 95 Symcox, Jerusalem in the Alps, 208–9. Documents, 2:334. 96 Ibid., 210–12. 81 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, The Major 97 Angelo Maria Manzini, O.F.M. Cap., Legend of Saint Francis, in Francis of Assisi: Early Sacro Monte of Orta (Orta: Community of the Documents, 2:640. Franciscan Friars, Custodian of the Sacro Monte 82 In De Conformitate Vitae Beati Francisci ad of Orta, 2006), 11. Vitam Domini Jesu Redemptoris nostri, Bartholomew 98 The completed chapels of Orta are: I.The outlines forty life events that correlate between Nativity of St. Francis; II. The Cross Speaks Francis and Jesus. The reprint of 1510 (Milan: to Saint Francis; III. Francis Renounces His Gotardus Ponticus) is commonly available under Clothing; IV. Francis Hears Mass; V. Francis’ First the title Liber conformitatum. Followers Take the Habit; VI. Francis and His 83 Thomas of Celano, The Remembrance of Followers Hear the Mass; VII. Pope Innocent the Desire of a Soul, in Francis of Assisi: Early III Approves the Order; VIII. Francis on the Documents, 2:254. Chariot of Fire; IX. St. Clare Takes the Veil; X. 84 Kenneth Baxter Wolf, Poverty of Riches Victory Over Temptation; XI. Indulgence of (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 45. Portiuncula; XII. Christ Approves the Franciscan 85 Thomas of Celano, The Life of Saint Francis, Order; XIII. Francis Led Naked through the in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 1:195. Streets; XIV. Francis before the Sultan; XV. 86 Thomas of Celano, The Remembrance of Francis Receives the Stigmata; XVI. Francis the Desire of a Soul, in Francis of Assisi: Early Returns to Verna; XVII. Death of Francis; XVIII. Documents, 2:247. Nicholas III at the Tomb; XIX. Miracles at the 87 The Assisi Compilation, in Francis of Assisi: Tomb; XX. . Chapel XXI was Early Documents, 2:180. intended to celebrate the “Canticle of the Sun.” 88 Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, The Major For background on Orta, see Elena De Filippis Legend of Saint Francis, in Francis of Assisi: Early and Fiorella Mattioli Carcano, Guide to the Sacro Documents, 2:600. Monte of Orta (Novara: Riserva Naturale Speciale 89 Ibid., 2:631–32. del Sacro Monte di Orta, 1991), and Manzini, 90 Phyllis Justice, “A New Fashion in Imitating Sacro Monte of Orta. Christ,” in The Year 1000: Religious and Social 99 Regis Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap. et al., eds. Responses to the Turning of the First Millennium, 3rd and trans., Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 3 edn., ed. Michael Frassetto (New York: Palgrave vols. (New York: New City Press, 1999–2001). Macmillan, 2002), 166. 100 Bartholomew of Pisa, De Conformitate, in 91 See also Bynum, Jesus as Mother, 16–17. Analecta Franciscana 4, ed. Fathers of the College 92 Patricia Ranft, How the Doctrine of of Saint Bonaventure (Quaracchi: Collegium S. Incarnation Shaped Western Culture (Lanham: Bonaventurae, 1906). Rowman and Littlefield, 2012), 223. 101 Roland Bainton, “Durer and Luther as the 93 Thomas of Celano, The Life of Saint Francis, Man of Sorrows,” The Art Bulletin 29, no. 4 (1947): in Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, 1:119. See 269–72. also one of the first systematic studies of the 102 See Erickson, “Bartholomew of Pisa, Francis Franciscus alter Christus theme in Stanislao da Exalted.” Campagnola, L’angelo del sesto sigillo e l’alter 103 Artistic representation of Franciscus alter Christus Genesi e sviluppo di due temi francescani Christus had become popular in the early fifteenth nei secoli XII–XIV, Studi e ricerche 1 (Rome: century. See H.W. Van Os, “St. Francis of Assisi Antonianum, 1971). as a Second Christ in Early Italian Painting,” Simiolus 7, no. 3 (1974): 115–32. In the last decades

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of the sixteenth and early seventeenth century, 112 Alex Gillespie, “Tourist Photography and St. Francis became the most paradigmatic of the Reverse Gaze,” Ethos 34, no. 3 (Jan. 2008): 360. saints. The attention bestowed upon him in Cf. David Levin, Modernity and the Hegemony of Italian painting of this period rivals that which Vision (Berkeley: University of California Press, he received from painters of the thirteenth and 1993), and also Michael Foucault, Discipline fourteenth centuries. See Pamela Askew, “The and Punish: The Birth of the Prison,trans. Alan Angelic Consolation of St. Francis of Assisi Sheridan (New York: Vintage Books, 1977), 171ff. in Post-Tridentine Italian Painting,” Journal of 113 David Morgan, The Sacred Gaze, Religious the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 32 (1969): Visual Culture in Theory and Practice(Berkeley: 280–306. University of California Press, 2005), 3. 104 Mark of Lisbon, Croniche degli ordini 114 David Morgan, Visual Piety: A History and instituiti dal P. San Francesco. Prima parte divisa Theory of Popular Religious Images(Berkeley: in dieci libri che contiente la sua vita, la sua morte University of California Press, 1998), 31. e i suoi miracoli, composta dal R.P. Fra Marco da 115 Georgia Frank has catalogued a list of Lisbona, traduz. dal portoghese (, 1680). See pre-modern commentators on the polyvalence of Pier Giorgo Longo, “Immagini e immaginario sight from Plato and Aristotle to , Paula, di San Francesco al Sacro Monte di Orta,” in Egeria, , , Antiche Guide del Sacro Monte di Orta, ed. Loredana , and Giotto. See Georgia Frank, Racchelli (Orta: Ente di Gestione delle Reserve “The Pilgrim’s Gaze in the Age Before Icons,” in Naturali Speciali del Sacro Monte di Orta, Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing del Monte Mesma e del Colle della Torre di as Others Saw, ed. Robert Nelson (Cambridge: Buccione, 2008), 63. Cambridge University Press, 2000), 98–115; 105 John Tolan, Saint Francis and the Sultan: The “‘Taste and See’: The Eucharist and the Eyes of Curious History of a Christian–Muslim Encounter Faith in the Fourth Century,” Church History 70, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 221. no. 4 (Dec. 2001): 619–43; and The Memory of the 106 See Maribel Deitz’s careful analysis and Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late discussion of the various categories of Christian Antiquity (Berkeley: University of California travelers, as well as the types of and motivations Press, 2000), particularly the final three chapters. for pilgrimage, in Wandering Monks, Virgins, and To the list of pre-modern commentators, Pilgrims: Ascetic Travel in the Mediterranean World, Christine Göttler would add Ignatius of Loyola; AD 300–800 (University Park: The Pennsylvania see Christine Göttler, “The Temptation of the State University Press, 2005), esp. 1–42. Senses at the Sacro Monte di Varallo” in Religion 107 Ibid., 7. and the Senses in Early Modern Europe, eds. Wietse 108 Paul Barolsky, “Naturalism and the de Boer and Christine Göttler (Leiden: Brill, Visionary Art of the Early Renaissance,” in Giotto 2013), 423. and the World of Early Italian Art: An Anthology of 116 Diana Eck, Darśan: Seeing the Divine Image in Literature, vol. 4: Franciscanism: The Papacy, and Art India, 3rd edn. (New York: Columbia University in the Age of Giotto: Assisi and Rome, ed. Andrew Press, 1998), 9. Ladis (Abingdon-on-Thames: Routledge, 1998), 117 Frank, The Memory of the Eyes, 29. 323. 118 Ibid., 173. 109 Martina Bagnoli, ed., A Feast for the Senses: 119 Robert W. Gaston, “Attention in Court: Art and Experience in Medieval Europe (New Haven: Visual Decorum in Medieval Prayer Theory and Yale University Press, 2017), 13. Early Italian Art,” in Visions of Holiness: Art and 110 Ibid., 14. Devotion in Renaissance Italy, eds. Andrew Ladis 111 Mark Cook, “Gaze and Mutual Gaze in and Shelley E. Zuraw (Athens: Georgia Museum Social Encounters,” American Scientist 65, no. 3 of Art, 2001), 140–43. (May–June 1977): 328. 120 Ibid., 144.

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121 Stuart Clark, Vanities of the Eye: Vision in Early Modern European Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 161. 122 Ibid., Gaston, “Attention in Court,” 154. 123 Jaś Elsner, “Between Mimesis and Divine Power: Visuality in the Greco-Roman World,” in Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance: Seeing as Others Saw, ed. Robert Nelson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 45. 124 Barolsky, “Naturalism and the Visionary Art of the Early Renaissance,” 317. 125 Clark, Vanities of the Eye, 161. 126 Göttler, “The Temptation of the Senses at the Sacro Monte di Varallo,” 413. See also comments pertaining to the relationship between the Catholic Reformation and the emphasis on exploitation of the senses by baroque artists in Gallegos, “Carlo Borromeo and Catholic Tradition,” 14. 127 Rudolf Wittkower, Idea and Image: Studies in the Italian Renaissance (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978), 177. 128 Lasansky, “Body Elision,” 259. 129 For more on the practice of modeling terracotta statuary individually, see Boucher, “Italian Renaissance Terracotta,” 7, 12, 18–19. 130 Sarah Stanbury, “The Virgin’s Gaze: Spectacle and Transgression in Middle English Lyrics of the Passion,” PMLA 106, no. 5 (Oct. 1991): 1087–88. 131 See Lasansky’s comments to this effect, in “Body Elision,” 252, 260.

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