Sacro Monte di Oropa
Encyclopedia
Comune
In Italy, the comune is the basic administrative division, and may be properly approximated in casual speech by the English word township or municipality.-Importance and function:...
of Biella
Biella
Biella is a town and comune in the northern Italian region of Piemonte, the capital of the province of the same name, with some 45,800 inhabitants as of 2009. It is located about 80 km northeast of Turin and about 80 km west-northwest of Milan.It lies in the foothills of the Alps,...
, Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
, northern Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
. It is one of the nine Sacri Monti of Piedmont and Lombardy and is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.
Construction began in 1617, near the pre-existing Sanctuary of Black Virgin of Oropa
Black Virgin of Oropa
The Black Virgin of Oropa, is the statute of the Virgin Mary located in the Sacro Monte di Oropa.-History:The original image of the Black Virgin of Monte Oropa was made in the third century. She was brought by St. Eusebius of Vercelli from the Middle East to his diocese of Vercelli. The image was...
, one of the oldest in Piedmont
Piedmont
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy. It has an area of 25,402 square kilometres and a population of about 4.4 million. The capital of Piedmont is Turin. The main local language is Piedmontese. Occitan is also spoken by a minority in the Occitan Valleys situated in the Provinces of...
and one of the best known in the region of the Alps
Alps
The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....
. The 12 chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...
s (plus another seven nearby) are united by a devotional
Catholic devotions
A Roman Catholic devotion is a gift of oneself, or one's activities to God. It is a willingness and desire to dedicate oneself to serve God; either in terms of prayers or in terms of a set of pious acts such as the adoration of God or the veneration of the saints or the Virgin Mary.Roman Catholic...
path, and inside these chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...
s scenes from the story of the life of the Virgin Mary are represented. The minute dimensions and expressions of the characters, the shades and colour tones and the vivid, precise settings of the episodes envelop the visitor in a warm atmosphere which grows from one chapel
Chapel
A chapel is a building used by Christians as a place of fellowship and worship. It may be part of a larger structure or complex, such as a church, college, hospital, palace, prison or funeral home, located on board a military or commercial ship, or it may be an entirely free-standing building,...
to the other until reaching Paradise (chapel XV – The Crowning of Mary), on the top of the hill, a Baroque
Baroque architecture
Baroque architecture is a term used to describe the building style of the Baroque era, begun in late sixteenth century Italy, that took the Roman vocabulary of Renaissance architecture and used it in a new rhetorical and theatrical fashion, often to express the triumph of the Catholic Church and...
work of art by the brothers Giovanni
Giovanni Enrico Vaymer
Giovanni Enrico Vaymer was an Italian painter of the Baroque period. He was born in Genoa, and there became a pupil of Giovanni Battista Gaulli. He was known as a portrait painter, and was three times summoned to paint the king and royal family at Turin. He was invited to remain at the court, but...
and Antonio d'Enrico
Tanzio da Varallo
Antonio d'Enrico, called Tanzio da Varallo, or simply il Tanzio was an Italian painter of the late-Mannerist or early Baroque period....
, animated by 156 modelled figures.
External links
- Sacro Monte di Oropa
- SacriMonti.net , web site for European Sacred Mounts.