page_title: Santa Maria delle Grazie, Varallo
section_title: Gaudenzio Ferrari's wall
hierarchical_section_title: Santa Maria delle Grazie, Varallo / Gaudenzio Ferrari's wall
context_page_description: The Church of Our Lady of the Graces is a Gothic-style, Roman Catholic temple in Varallo Sesia, province of Vercelli, region of Piedmont, Italy. The church was built, together with the adjacent Franciscan convent, by padre Bernardo Caimi between 1486 and 1493. At this time, the construction of the Sacro Monte was also beginning. In December 1931, Pope Pius XI gave the church the title of Minor Basilica.
context_section_description: As common for franciscan churches, the bare façade does not hint at the rich fresco decoration inside. In the cosy atmosphere of the church, with the gothic arches sustaining the ceiling trusses, the wall of frescoes  by Gaudenzio Ferrari are one of the masterpieces in the Renaissance painting in Piedmont and Lombardy. They depict Life and Passion of Jesus Christ on a surface of 82 m²: twenty equal frames narrate the main facts told by the gospels from the Annunciation to the Resurrection, working as Biblia pauperum. The Crucifixion, as the most important narrative scene, occupies the center with four frames.
  The painter from the Valsesia completed the frescos in 1513 (as it is written on the wall by the author himself "Gaudenzius Ferrarius Vallis Siccidae pinxit"). He was working in Varallo, at the Sacro Monte, since ten years. He already painted the Polyptych of St Anne.
  Ferrari's influences, for example in his orientation of the Last Supper include da Vinci's famous fresco in Milan. Ferrari's landscapes also recall Leonardo's style. But Gaudenzio had traveled to Rome, and met or saw the work of Bramantino in Milan or Perugino in Rome.
  The most important model was Giovanni Martino Spanzotti, author of a similar decoration in the church of San Bernardino in Ivrea. The nocturnal Arrest of Jesus quotes of the same scene in Ivrea.
  Despite the importance of his models, Gaudenzio also painted some figures (such as armors, horse heads, halos) in relief to give them particular prominence; an innovation perhaps prompted by the three dimensional tableaux of the Sacro Monte chapels.
caption: Central panel of the Crucifixion by Gaudenzio Ferrari
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