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| The Sacred Mount of the Holy Trinity of Ghiffa |
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The Sacred Mount of the Holy Trinity of Ghiffa sits on the Piemonte shore of the Lago Maggiore, in the province of Verbano Cusio Ossola. The devotional complex enjoys a splendid panoramic position on the lake and the Lombard pre-alps. The project of the Sacred Mount, which originally was supposed to portray episodes of the Old and New Testament, was never completed.
The Sacred Mount has three principal chapels dedicated to biblical subjects, and two other smaller minor chapels, joined to the Sanctuary and the portico of the Via Crucis. The first three chapels were built around the sanctuary of the Holy Trinity, which was constructed between 1605 and 1617 on the remains of an ancient medieval oratory.
The chapel of the Coronation of the Virgin was built in 1647 by the Canetta family of Ghiffa, as remembered in an inscription on the entry door. The second chapel, dedicated to the Baptism of Jesus, was built before 1659 and it depicts John the Baptist as he pours water of the Jordan over the head of Jesus while the Heavenly Father looks on from above. The third chapel, more isolated from the rest of the complex, portrays the Patriarch Abraham prostrate before three angels.
The sanctuary is central construction with a rectangular layout; the chapels have a geometric |
| arrangement, with a portico or peristyle with arches. In 1752, the portico was added with frescoes of the stations of the Via Crucis; the fourteen bays, with crossed vaults and stone columns, highlight the devotional function of the course along the fourteen stations, depicted by aediculae frescoed at the beginning of the 1800s and enriched with polychrome tiles in the 1930s. |
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The Special Natural Reserve of the SS. Trinità di Griffa
Via SS. Trinità, 48
28823 Ghiffa (VB)
Tel.: 0323 59870
Fax: 0323 590800
E-mail : Sito internet :
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