Sacro Monte di Varallo
The "Holy Mountain" Sacro Monte di Varallo located in the municipality of Varallo Sesia in the Italian province of Vercelli ( Piedmont ). He is a famous pilgrimage site since 2003 and is recognized by UNESCO as one of the Sacri Monti as a World Heritage Site.
The Sacro Monte is in relation to the historical era of the Counter-Reformation. As a ' sacred mountain ', it is a compilation of different bands, but the size and reach home together form something like a small city in itself. It is a museum of sorts, a collection of chapels around a church around. The "New Jerusalem " as the Holy Mountain was first called, was originally intended to reproduce the no longer accessible to places of pilgrimage of Christian traditions in Palestine. From such religious productions in the countryside, there were in the sequence in northern Italy some, but only a few who are - Belmonte obtained in a certain completeness, Crea, Domodossola, Ghiffa, Oropa, Orta and Varallo. Two are in the Lombardy Ossuccio and Varese.
A total of 45 religious buildings are gathered here on the Sacro Monte. It was started in 1497 and is the oldest of its kind, the names of the artists who created the architecture and the paintings in the interiors, are comparatively unknown. Gaudenzio Ferrari was the first of the line held here. Then took over in the middle of the 16th century. Carlo Borromeo ( whose monument stands in Arona ) the overall direction and he made sure that worked with increased intensity.
Against 1650, the plant was largely completed, and since then revive in 45 stage-like rooms 600 life-size figures made of wood or terracotta and over 4000 painted figures in all types of sculptured or illusionistic frescos landscapes and interiors scene. Painting and sculpture are almost exclusively of high quality.
The bands consist of a small vestibule, into which you can enter into it. And then comes in either a mesh grille, through which one can look at the scenery constructed, or the grid is only waist high and provides an unobstructed view. In principle, a kind of nativity scene, but much larger, more complex, and with very different scenes. It is a " religious theater with inanimate actors "