THE PARTITION OF SANTA MARIA DELLE GRAZIE' S CHURCH
The "Parete Gaudenziana", namely the "Tramezzo of Santa Maria delle Grazie' s Church" (1513)
The life of Jesus Christ is shown in 21 pictures, according to the program of St. Francis, where the Crucifixion is four times bigger than each single picture. The compositional symmetry is co-ordinated and balanced (see for instance the architectural location of the Annunciation and of the Last Supper). The recalls to the Pareti of Ivrea by Spanzotti and those of Lomellina by Foppa, complete themselves with compositional reinterpretations and aesthetical solutions due to Perugino, Durer and others up to Leonardo, with architectural recalls to Bramante. The final result is however considered the highest point reached in those works according to the teaching of St. Francis. The links with the great Lent velarium of Germany and Northern Italy (Fastentucker), must be explored and related. In the same way one should compare the partitions still present in the area, which in some way refer to the Sacred Mounts where the representation of the teaching reaches its top.
The Parete Gaudenziana has always been the starting point for the key to understand the history of Salvation, both in the First and the Second Testament: Jesus Christ.
To read the story of the aesthetic face of Gaudenzio Ferrari's work is but restrictive and reducing as regards the wonderful ecology of the Sacred Mount: Coelestis Urbs Jerusalem.
Another note we must consider as for the Diocese of Novara, is a big Lent velarium kept in Borgosesia, at the foot of the Valley. The dating is one century later, and the composition is concentrated almost only on the Crucifixion, while colours become more and more serried, nearly monochromatic. It is no more a partition that in the twentieth Century literature could be compared to a great didactic strip cartoon: it could be better compared to an advertising poster or perhaps to a cinema frame stopped on the screen during the meditation upon the reading of Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi or during a lectio biblica coming after it. Each Sacred Friday it is worshipped in the Church of St. Anthony.
