CASTIGLIONE D'INTELVI, SANTA MARIA DEL RESTELLO
|
The Oratory, dedicated to the Madonna del Carmine, had been built as ex-voto, commissioned by the community, beginning from 1717. Consecrated on February 12th 1737. The edifice has a central layout in octagonal section. Since the origin, with a single altar, without choir area. On the outside it appears as a dual-frame structure, of rough-brick wall, whereon rises the tambour, covered from a tiled roof, hiding the dome of the central hall. After the edifice construction had been completing, artist Giulio Il Quaglio (Laino, 1668-1751) painted in fresco the half-dome, representing the Assumption of the Virgin in Heaven, surrounded by a suite of angels, and in the pendentives four prophets: Isaiah, David, Solomon, Sophonia, everyone showing a verse bearing on Marian Celebration. Also assignable to the painter of Laino is the oval ancon, over the altar, where Virgin Mary with the Holy Child in arms, gives the scapular to St. Peter, distinguished by the attribute of the keys, and to St. Carlo Borromeo, in cardinal’s robes, both of them kneeling and portrayed in three quarters; on background a landscape with lake and mountains. A gilt-wood moulded frame marks the boundary of the painting. In 1730 the altarpiece was adorning with a frontal in scagliola with many-coloured festoons, flowers and birds, on a black ground, bordered with marble-like lapping friezes, ascribable to the wide Solari’s works. The pictorial decoration of the church had been completing in 1748 with frescoes by Alessandro Ferretti (Castiglione Intelvi, 1706-1756) painted on the side walls of the central space. On the right-side the Annunciation. The scene is delimiting by angels, who hold draperies as wings at the moment that, after the announcement by archangel Gabriel, painted in flight with a lily branch in the hand and raising arm, Virgin Mary, kneeling, with folded hands across her chest and her head bowed down, submits herself to God’s will. Symmetrical, on the wall-side in front, with the same layout, the Nativity of the Virgin : in the middle, close-up, an elderly woman, seated, holds the Virgin in the arms, surrounded on the right-side by two female figures, and a little girl on the left; a maiden, from behind, holding a basin, closes the scene; on the background right, Saint Anna, still lying in a tester-bed. Both the central room and the high altar show rich stucco decorations, fruits of a joint commitment, despite partial restoration works within end nineteenth- and early twentieth-century, by Giovanni Battista Comparetti from Pigra, working with Ferretti himself as well for the Saint George parish church in Laglio around 1744. The Stuccoes of Restello, relying to a date, no longer readable nowadays, at 1720. Next to the cornering of the central hall, inside niches, edged with moulded frame and vegetable’s decors, the four Evangelists are portrayed, standing, in full-length: each-one accompanied with the attribute of the book and they’re own symbol beside. Saint Luke, bearded, in the act to advance, had the bull crouching at his feet, and closes with both hands the sacred text. Saint Mark holds the book open and points, with the arm, to the Almighty. The Lyon is crouching on his side, keeping a stone under its right paw. Saint Matthew turns his eyes up, he looks mature, bearded and partly bald-headed. The closed book beside his bust, is carried in flight by a little angel. Saint John has uncommon features of an adult and bearded man. Sideward, low on the left, the eagle with outspread wings; under its talon stays the book closed. The position of the arms invites the faithful to look towards the altar. Over the arch ushering into the narrow apsidal room, bounded by a polychrome marbles banister with baluster bearings, two angels, of childish appearance, are moulded in flight, pointing out a rocailles scroll, with Marian Theme inscription with vegetable and floral ornaments. The altar lintel is likewise in stucco, with mirrored central oval for the altar-piece completed by a split gable. Sideways of the ancona, two angels in flight are showed, in youngster guise, moulded in full relief. Resuming the high appreciated typologies in Valley, as testified from the stylistic affinity with those realised by Retti’s family, in the Saint Joseph church in Laino, as well with the exemplars, of the first side-chapel left, in the Saint Anthony Abbot parish-church in San Fedele. The angel on the right, looking toward the observer, turns his hands to the ancona asking to watch it; that on the left, likewise turned to the faithful, has his arms folded on his breast. Above the volutes of the tympanum, two angels are sitting in full relief, lying in chiasmus to they below, the figure on the right, turn its eyes to the faithful and ask him to look the overhanging medallion, while the other folds the hands on the breast. Angels, in childish form, are moulded over the pediment, adorned with cherubic heads, and they hold a medallion with the representation of the Holy Spirit in form of a dove.
The Vestry, accessible through a wooden door, on the right side at the back of the apse, consists in a right-angled plan room, with a ribbed vault ceiling. Built from about 1753 and results completed by the following pastoral visit of 1768. Surfaces had been decorating within the end of eighteenth-century, but appears heavily rehashed. On the vault frames are painted, simulating stucco-works with brackets adorned with shell-valves just next to the corbels, and stylized vases above. In the middle the dove of the Holy Spirit from which starts a ray-beam of light that illuminates the whole ceiling. From the fake intrados hanging some bay leaves symmetrical arranged and kept from umbones. |
|
