Ex Voto: An Account of the Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia

Samuel ButlerProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.7
Word count
347K words
Chapters
35

Tags

English Originals TheoryReligion Human GeographyHistorical ReappraisalReligious ArtArt ArchaeologyIllustrated GuideAcademic StudyTraditional AestheticsEclectic ReadingArchitectural AestheticsPilgrimage Site

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today. Ex Voto: An Account of the Sacro Monte or New Jerusalem at Varallo-Sesia by Butler. Author: Butler, Samuel, 1835-1902. Language: English, Class: N: Fine Arts, Release Date: May 1, 2003

Editor's review

This work is Samuel Butler's account of his visit to the Sacro Monte, or New Jerusalem, at Varallo-Sesia in Italy. The Sacro Monte is a complex of religious buildings set on a hillside, reproducing the sacred sites of Jerusalem through numerous life-size painted sculptures and frescoes; it is a distinctive product of the Renaissance union of religious art and landscape design. Drawing on his own travels, Butler describes the architecture and sculpture in detail while also recording local religious customs and historical legends, his prose combining an observer's calm with a man of letters' relish. For readers studying Italian Renaissance religious art, pilgrimage culture, or nineteenth-century British travel writing, the book offers a first-hand on-site record. Written in the nineteenth century, its pacing is slow and its narration bears the marks of its age, making it suitable for focused study or as travel-literature reading rather than light leisure reading.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Consult basic geographical and architectural background on the Sacro Monte at Varallo before the main text to reduce difficulties in comprehension.
  2. Read chapter by chapter, marking passages on sculpture groups and frescoes for later comparison with visual materials.
  3. If the English original proves difficult, read alongside a reliable Italian guide to the Sacro Monte.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35

FAQ

Is this book a novel or a travelogue? It is a non-fiction account in which the author, drawing on his travels, describes the architecture, sculpture, and religious customs of the Sacro Monte at Varallo-Sesia; it combines travel writing with art description and is not a fictional novel.
Can I read it without a background in art history? Yes, but it is advisable first to grasp the basic concept of the Sacro Monte and some general knowledge of Renaissance religious sculpture. The descriptions are detailed, and without background knowledge one easily loses one's bearings; reading with a guidebook works better.
What are the features of the Project Gutenberg edition? This edition is a free public-domain ebook whose text derives from early digitization and may lack modern notes and illustrations. Readers can supplement it with other art-historical materials.

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About the author

Samuel Butler Author · British · 1835–1902

Samuel Butler (1835–1902) was a British novelist and essayist. Born into a clergyman's family in Nottinghamshire, he graduated from Cambridge University and later went to New Zealand to run a sheep station. He is known for the satirical utopian novel Erewhon and the posthumously published autobiographical novel The Way of All Flesh. The former uses an imaginary country as a mirror to critique Victorian education, religion, and morality, while the latter examines growth and family relations through a family narrative. He also wrote Erewhon Revisited, The Note-Books of Samuel Butler, The Authoress of the Odyssey, and works on life, art, science, evolution, and memory, spanning fiction, essays, and intellectual commentary, often with an ironic and skeptical tone.