Chiesa di Santa Maria delle Grazie

At the foot of the Sacred Mount of Varallo stands the late-Gothic Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, renowned for Gaudenzio Ferrari's fresco cycle. Painted in 1513, its twenty-one scenes of the life and Passion of Christ cover the dividing wall of the church.

Why it matters

The church forms an important part of Bernardino Caimi's devotional project at the Sacred Mount. Its frescoed wall, known as the Parete Gaudenziana, presents the story of Christ in a cycle of Renaissance paintings and relates to the chapel narratives on the hill above.

What to notice

The church's simple late-Gothic form includes a tramezzo, or dividing wall, that separated the friars' choir from the area used by the laity. In 1513 Gaudenzio Ferrari covered the wall with twenty-one scenes, from the Annunciation to the Resurrection, with the Crucifixion as the central image. The frescoes transform an architectural partition into a large narrative composition.

Context and history

The church replaced a rural chapel in the area known as del Selletto. Its construction, between 1486 and 1493, coincided with Bernardino Caimi's work on the Sacred Mount, begun in 1491, and with the establishment of an adjoining Franciscan convent. Ferrari painted the fresco cycle in 1513. The church later passed out of Franciscan hands. Its tramezzo is a rare surviving example of a rood screen retained in an Italian church.