An Apocryphal Encounter

An Apocryphal Encounter Commentary by Andrew Casper Cite Share Show Bible Passage Read by Ben Quash This is one of the several contributions made by Jean de Wespin (Il Tabacchetti) and Giovanni d’Enrico in the late 1500s and early 1600s to the Sacro Monte di Varallo in Piedmont, Northern Italy. The ‘holy mountain’ is a pilgrimage site consisting of a series of small chapels featuring multi-media dioramas of sacred events. Visitors to the Sacro Monte have benefited for centuries from the immersive devotional experiences that they afford. This particular scene is among the most lavish of those at the site. It is composed of crowds of figures made in polychrome terracotta exhibiting animated gestures and postures. These painted sculptures have a naturalism rarely encountered in Italian Renaissance art. They are nearly life-size, and the artist has incorporated such elements as real hair and inlaid glass eyes to evoke a vivid and hyperrealistic presence verging on the hallucinatory for viewers who encounter this scene. The subjects featured at this site, and other sculpted sacri monti like it, usually adhere closely to the Gospel accounts of their respective stories. But especially prominent in this one is a famous episode which—though frequently portrayed by medieval and Renaissance artists—is not explicitly mentioned in any of the four Gospel accounts of Christ’s carrying the cross. This is the encounter with St Veronica, who presents Christ with a face cloth after he stumbles under the weight of the cross. By introducing another character to the story of Christ’s way to Calvary, the Veronica legend offers additional ways for worshippers to enter into devotion to Christ’s Passion. One of those is through the object she holds in her hands. After being wiped, Christ’s face is said miraculously to have left its image adhering to the cloth. That image is here displayed by Veronica. The cloth, often called the Sudarium, the Veil of Veronica, or simply the Veronica, was believed to have been kept in Rome since the twelfth century where it became one of Christianity’s most holy and highly revered sacred relics. Veronica, like Simon of Cyrene, embodies the compassionate onlooker. Both this apocryphal woman and this scripturally-attested man are followers of Christ and his sacrifice—emerging from the anonymity of the masses who press around the Saviour to become more intimately bound up in his story. Both provide examples after which viewers can model their own piety and empathy.