Chapels

A Crucifix by Gaudenzio?

Filippo Maria Ferro

A crucifix – a wooden sculpture of extraordinary quality – adorns the chapel that bears its name.
The body of Christ is captured at the very moment of death. His limbs are animated by a trembling shiver, perceptible in the extension of the arms, in the fleshiness of the torso and the faint pulsing of the chest, in the sudden bend of the knees. The head, weakly inclined, collapses onto the shoulder, and the face is lifted amid the darkly disheveled hair of horsehair. Blood flows in a stream along the side, around the spear wound, and congeals, running down to the feet and striking them with the wounds of the nail. The cry of agony is suspended between the invocation to the Father and the fury of the storm, the tearing of the veil of the Temple.
A concentration of experience and of time becomes absolute in the interpretation of this masterpiece.
Upon which cross did this agonized image suffer? In all likelihood it was fixed to the iconostasis of the extramural church. Such a placement is described by Taverna (c. 1617), who records it at All Saints: “there is an unpainted architrave above which stands a large Cross, upon which there is a large Crucified Christ of the stature of any man.”
The work was later transferred to the new basilica and placed in its current location.
It is noted in situ on the altar “cum doubus virginibus hic et hinde” in the Odescalchi’s visit in 1657:
most likely, in the new setting, an attempt was made to create a group with mourning figures. This arrangement may fuel a conjecture: Melchiorre d’Enrico, shortly after the death of his pupil Antonio il Tanzio, was active at San Gaudenzio (Sergio Monferrini has uncovered documents revealing a dispute over works to be carried out through the bishop); had he completed some decoration of the Nazari chapel or undertaken to arrange the crucifix according to the canons of the Sacro Monte? The sculpture is attributed to Gaudenzio by Prina, who also notes the presence of “a Magdalene painted at the foot in the act of embracing the cross.” It is again mentioned by Cotta, who almost synthesizes Odescalchi and Prina, while at the same time raising significant questions regarding the painted figures: “On the right… [in the Chapel of Our Lady of Loreto] a sculpted Crucifix by our Gaudenzio, upon whose crossbeam he painted the Magdalene, and on the sides angels in mourning.” The reference to the original context is striking and evocative of a great conception; nevertheless, it serves as evidence of continuity in the narrative path, justifying the attribution to the same artist or to the school of Gaudenzio among the architects of the Sacred Mountains.
In the Balbis Bertone’s visit in 1764, the crucifix is recorded as being accompanied by a Sorrowful Virgin; this was almost certainly the Magdalene mentioned by Cotta.
Between the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the ensemble was reworked and the Magdalene removed. Indeed, the chapel underwent a radical intervention: a marble altar was built and the walls were frescoed by the Sabatelli. Bianchini, in 1828, describes the situation as it stands today: “a crucifix, a sculptural work by Gaudenzio […]. The Magdalene – painted in fresco by him in the act of embracing the cross – no longer exists.”
The reassessment of Gaudenzio as a sculptor by Giovanni Testori, and the intense debate that followed, have left interpretative margins as to whether and to what extent the work can truly be read as such (the restoration was carried out by Novaria Restauri in 2007 under the direction of Anna Maria Bava).

Paolo Venturoli breaks the silence and in 1996 states:
“The only work that seems to me comparable to the levels of pathos found in Gaudenzio, and which could even be by his own hand—though not within the chapel—is a Crucifix preserved in the Parish Church of San Giovanni Battista in Novara, a masterpiece of the late fifteenth and early sixteenth century, closely related to the wooden Christ of the collegiate church of Oleggio by Giovanni Angelo del Maino for the Cathedral of Como in 1513.”
Venturoli’s words are particularly illuminating. They underscore the high quality of the sculpture and, above all, highlight connections between Gaudenzio and Giovanni Angelo within their workshop and through the “contribution of Marco Albertiari of Procaccino,” which fostered an exchange of experiences—later set aside—while at the same time drawing attention to the presence in the cathedral of works by Bernardino Lanino and Gaudenzio Ferrari, called between the end of the second decade and the following decade to paint and partially intervene in the area of Sant’Abbondio. In this context, Gaudenzio appears closely aligned with Giovanni Angelo, absorbed into the crucible of early sixteenth-century experiences, from which emerge the Lombard influences variously received and developed by Giovanni Angelo, paving the way for the great seventeenth-century plastic tradition of the Sacro Monte of Varallo.
According to these considerations, the long-overlooked Novara crucifix helps to resolve the vexed question of Gaudenzio as a sculptor. In his interpretation of sculpture and painting—so effectively brought into focus by Roberto Longhi and understood by Giovanni Testori as a “species” of the great mountain theatre—Gaudenzio, from the beginning of his presence at Varallo, developed, directly or with the help of collaborators, an Orphic line of sculpture. The points of reference appear to be Giovanni Pietro and Giovanni Antonio De Donati, to whom the group of the Stone of Unction (c. 1493) is attributed. In this set were born the earliest sculptures at the Sacro Monte: the Madonna and the Angel in the Chapel of the Annunciation (c. 1500); the Sleeping Madonna (1498), to which are related the Sleeping Madonna and the Assumed Madonna, Rossa; and the magnificent wooden Christ of the Ascent to Calvary (c. 1610).
Again, in close poetic correspondence with the Crucifixion (tempera on panel, 1498, Varallo, Pinacoteca), several crucifixes were created: at Zuccaro (1496–1497), at Campertogno (c. 1500), and at Boccioleto (c. 1490–1500).
Some years later, Gaudenzio resumed work at the Sacro Monte and set up Chapel I of the Crucifixion, where the relationship between sculpture and painting becomes absolutely constitutive of the scenic effect. Once again, Paolo Venturoli notes the strongly “plastic” quality of the undertaking, emphasizing the cultural dialogue with Giovanni Angelo De Donati and Del Maino. From this perspective, the Novara Christ serves as a true hinge leading to the Chapel of the Crucifixion; the use of horsehair for the hair seems to mark this transition.
Indeed, the Christ of the chapel is always represented in the same pose, with the legs placed side by side; Testori himself recognized this when reading various interventions and intuiting the capacity for “animation” upon the skin. Giovanni Romano said:
“The mystery of the catalogued Crucifix, which does not belong to Gaudenzio’s campaign of work at the Sacro Monte nor to the mountain altarpiece of the Crucifixion, yet is closely related to Gaudenzio’s figurative thought in the line of sculpture … with a dramatic outcome.” It must be acknowledged that one must become more familiar with this ancient style of the chapel, closer to the Passion of the Grazie.

The Novara work carries within it “an exasperation which, even if explained by its relationship with Del Maino, must nevertheless be more accurately situated within Gaudenzio’s own trajectory (or that of the workshop inspired by him).” One should consider whether the Christ, in the extramural basilica, was positioned forward in relation to the polyptych on the high altar, yet in fact constituted a necessary element of a complex scenic composition. Testori had already observed: “the contrast between the peace present in the departed and the convulsive, abrupt, almost precipitous tone found in the predella was so sharp.” Elsewhere, the “expressionist” charge is openly declared. An exemplary composition that history interrupted but then, through a fatal affinity, ultimately recomposed—allowing the polyptych and the crucifix to resume a tense and unavoidable dialogue.