Landscape Narratives: The Sacro Monte d’Orta (Italy)

ABSTRACT

The Holy Mountains, or Sacri Monti, in Northern Italy are devotional places created for pilgrims during the Counter-Reformation. Their design is based on the sequence of a series of chapels arranged in the landscape, which narrate the life of Jesus or a Saint. Recently, scholars analysing the artistic features of the Holy Mountains focused on their paintings and sculptures, while the landscape design methods on which the pathways are based have been little studied. This paper addresses this lacuna by focusing on, one of the earliest examples, the Sacro Monte of Orta, and investigating its strong relationship with the landscape and the innovative design method behind the project. The analysis is based on the collection of historical documents and the physical exploration and related visual and photographic interpretation of the still well-maintained place. The research revealed a series of strong similarities between the design principles of the Sacro Monte of Orta and the picturesque gardens realised in England and France some decades after. The article aims to provide more insights regarding the Sacri Monti, interpreting them as cinematic sequences into the landscape and suggesting them as early picturesque devices.

KEYWORDS:

• Sacri Monti
• counter-reformation
• Holy Mountains
• montage and sequence
• picturesque
• space and time notation

Introduction

The nine Sacri Monti in the Italian Pre-Alps of north-west Italy, surrounded by mountains and lakes, have been inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list since 2003. Sacri Monti—literally ‘holy mountains’—were invented as Catholic religious places for pilgrims as one aspect of the Counter-Reformation acts in the late fifteenth century, Similar to calvaries, they are—devotional paths integrated into the landscape composed of a series of stops which narrate the life of Jesus or a Saint (Barbero 2001; Zanzi 2005). Different from calvaries, though, the stops are not simply small chapels but proper buildings containing statues and painting, and the landscape is not left natural, with just a path linking the stops, but is designed. Their strategic location was motivated by their position in proximity to Reformed communities, with Sacri Monti valued as places for reinforcing the faith and possibly defending the areas from the spread of other creed, but also by the character of the places with the goal of creating ideal ‘Jerusalems’ in the west for those unable to make the pilgrimage to Palestine.

The Sacri Monti have been overlooked by scholars and even the general public for centuries. Only recently have art researchers begun evaluating their distinctive and innovative qualities, finally defining them as examples of ‘Early Modern installation art where the multi-valent atmosphere challenges the idea of the Renaissance as a period epitomized by non-haptic one-point perspectives.’ (Lasansky 2017, 318). Most studies until now have focussed on the artistic components of the Sacri Monti, such as paintings and sculptures. Furthermore, most research has been on the Sacro Monte of Varallo, the first and most famous Sacro Monte, which opened in 1614 (Lasansky 2017; Ravasi 2005). The present paper (in continuance of previous research, Molinari 2019) instead aims to describe the architectural features of the nearby Sacro Monte di San Francesco d’Orta San Giulio and to investigate its strong relationship with the landscape (Figures 1 and 2). The main goal is to assess the critical role of narrative sequences as a design method for these places and finally to define the Sacri Monti as early examples of the picturesque.

Figure 1. The lake of Orta viewed from chapel no. XVII on the Sacro Monte (Photo C. Molinari, taken 2022).

Figure 2. The lake of Orta and the Saint Julius Island surrounded by the Alps (Photo C. Molinari, taken 2022).

In the history of Catholic buildings, there are several examples of projects designed to experience the sacredness of places or relics, and often the design is based on processional routes that guide the devout along the spiritual and physical path. Apart from calvaries and ways of the cross, or the ambulatories in pilgrimage churches, a compelling example is the majestic portico of San Luca, in Bologna, designed in 1655 by Camillo Saccenti (1614–1688) and finally completed in 1721. The Sacri Monti are part of this series of Catholic architectural inventions, but they distinguish themselves for the intense relationship with the landscape, and the critical narrative purposes. Their design follows the narrative line of a story: the constitutive chapels are arranged into the landscape, focusing on spatial as well as temporal relationships between buildings, and suggesting movement as the main tool to experiencing the project. Furthermore, Sacri Monti were designed to represent a different place and period, inventing an alternative reality and emotionally engaging with the visitor. For this series of reasons their architectural projects are extremely innovative for the time, and it can be argued that they have modern properties.

The film director and theorist Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948) analysed different architectural projects in his article ‘Montage and Architecture’, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the concept of montage as a design method (Eisenstein 1989). One of his examples is a Sacromonte in Mexico, in the pilgrimage town of Amecameca.

A winding road has been laid out around this fairly steep hill, and it is along this road that the ‘twelve stations’ have been placed, the ultimate destination (‘Golgotha’) being the church at the top. From station to station the road ascends a certain number of meters. The business of climbing that distance is particularly impressive because it is the custom to go from station to station and on up to the very top on one's knees. The emotional reactions from stopping place to stopping place thereby increase switch the pilgrims’ ever increasing physical exhaustion. (Eisenstein 1989, 121).

The present paper follows Eisenstein’s interpretation and other recent definitions of picturesque design methods (Bruno 2002; Stiërli 2013; Posocco 2000) to argue that the fundamental roles of narrative and users’ experience are why the Sacri Monti can be considered an ante tempus design that follows picturesque principles. The first part of the article explores the concept of the Picturesque in architecture, intended as a design method, theorising three main features. In the second part, the Sacro Monte of Orta is carefully described, illustrated and analysed showing adherence to the picturesque principles and those three main features.

The Picturesque as a Design Method

Defining the term Picturesque involves a complexity linked to the further developments of the concept depending on the territorial and disciplinary context. However, it is the evolution of its meaning over time that above all else confuses its limits and properties (Robinson 1991; Hunt 2013). In the beginning, ‘Picturesque’ referred to the quality of places and to a pictorial tendency of some landscapes and scenarios. This meaning identifies the term in its most widespread sense still today. From the middle of the sixteenth century, the term Picturesque was used in art theory to describe the method, not simply the feature, by which some works composed and structured boundless panoramas.

Thus, in the paintings of Claude Lorrain (1600–1682) or Nicolas Poussin (1594–1665), we find a fragmentation of the pictorial unity through the definition of a succession of scenes and events relating to different spatialities and possibly temporalities. For instance, in Lorrain’s Landscape with a Column and Figures, painted in 1650 (Figure 3), the viewer’s eyes move from the three figures in the foreground to the one close to the column, then from the castle to the bridge, and then again from the animals on the left to some other figures in the background. The painting is fragmented into different scenes, and only through our gaze’s movement we can finally understand and absorb the whole picture. Similarly, in English gardens of the late seventeenth century the picturesque space is articulated according to a series of objets trouvés, so that vistas appear suddenly along a sinuous path.

Figure 3. Landscape with a Column and Figures, Claude Lorrain, 1650. (Wikicommons).

The relationship between cinematic experience and picturesque principles has been thoroughly investigated by the architectural historian Martino Stiërli, who wrote:

According to von Buttlar, the picturesque garden is accessed cinematically, in a sequence of images established by the observer’s movement. This is underlined by William Burgh, one of the leading theoreticians of the picturesque from the end of the eighteenth century. In his commentary on William Mason’s poem The English Garden in the 1783 edition, Burgh named two essential characteristics of the landscape garden designed according to the principle of the picturesque: namely, “variety” and “path”. (Stiërli 2013, 171)

In this sense, the concept of Picturesque should be considered in both art and architecture, not just as a simple attribute, or a quality of a style of some images, but as an accurate ‘method of composition’ (Rowe 1977, 95).

One of the first examples of picturesque gardens is the garden of Rousham House, Oxfordshire, designed in 1738–1741 by William Kent (1685–1748). The project had started a few years before Kent’s involvement when it created an extremely innovative garden based on creating a landscape no longer geometric but natural. Kent went further by adding a series of follies following an experiential path (Figure 4). In this work, the insertion of ‘variety’ is apparent, through the addition of individual elements, isolated in nature, and through the definition of a ‘path’ capable of leading the viewer from one fragment to another in an empty sequence of views in succession. As in the best picturesque tradition, the elements inserted are fountains, statues, small pavilions or secret gardens. The composition is not classical, symmetrical or linear but sequential, determined by an attentive and careful plot of relationships that unite the individual architectural or sculptural details (Buck and Molinari 2022). The natural landscape, in particular, is modelled to construct this series of passages and connections between fragments. For example, part of the path is emphasised by the insertion of a water line on the ground—a slight natural sign that leads the visitor; or again, the vegetation is cut, interrupted and arranged to become an effective scenic background, framing views and opening up ever-new views (Coates 2012). As stated by visual art scholar.

Figure 4. The sequence of views along the path in Rousham garden, Oxfordshire (Photo C. Molinari, taken 2019).

Giuliana Bruno, in picturesque gardens:

Nature must be experienced through the forms and conditions of a view and, like a photograph, must be seen as a visual narrative that slowly reveals itself. Again, the garden is a form of museum. Composed of a series of images, often linked by association, the picturesque is constructed scenographically. Perspective tricks are used to enhance the composition of the landscape and its reception methods. (Bruno 2002, 193)

In this paper three main features are defined and utilised to analyse Picturesque as a design method:

1. Sequential Design: The organisation of a ‘variety’ along a linear ‘path’.

2. Natural Landscape: The design of a landscape that, even if artificial, follows principles of naturalness and wildness.

3. Mise-en-Scène: The dramatic and theatrical aesthetics used to develop each fragment, and the encounter with them.

Considering these three elements as the main features of the Picturesque, we can argue that the Sacri Monti, particularly the Sacro Monte of Orta, are early examples of the Picturesque.

The Sacro Monte of Orta—Description and Discussion

The Sacro Monte of Orta is one of the earliest Sacri Monti which is still well preserved. Orta is a town on the Lake of Cusio in the north of Italy, and it has a long religious history (Coates 2012). The little island in front of the town was the place of the legend of Saint Julius, who used his cloak to navigate on the lake, fight dragons and snakes and finally convert people; his grave on the island was a pilgrimage destination for centuries. The Sacro Monte of Orta was desired in 1583 by the community that deliberated the creation of a holy mountain to create a devotional path drawing pilgrimages following the example of Varallo (Lasansky 2017). The town of Orta was flourishing at this period, and the construction of a Sacro Monte symbolised its prosperity and its citizens’ wish for independence from the island. It represented an essential financial investment (Mattioli Carcano 2005). The choice of the trail’s theme was probably due to the influence in the area of the Franciscans, the life of Saint Francesco (1181–1226) having been narrated by Saint Bonaventura (1221–1274) in Saint Francis—Legenda Maior (Bonaventura 2010). Saint Francesco’s life is furthermore a kind of emulation of Christ's life, and represents a perfect pathway for observants to follow through a landscape.

Construction of Orta’s Sacro Monte began in 1590, mainly thanks to the abbot Amico Canobio (1532–1592), and supervised by the architect and monk Cleto da Castelletto (1556–1619), a novice of Pellegrino Tibaldi (1527–1596) (Marzi 1991). The first design comprised thirty-six chapels, although in the end only twenty were built. Despite several changes during the construction period, the specific aim to create a sequential path in the landscape is still intact (Figure 5). The route starts in the town centre, follows a long uphill slope until the cemetery roughly half-way up the hill, and then turns to a second slope to reach the portal of the Sacro Monte (Figure 6), before starting a circuitous route through the twenty chapels.

Figure 5. The sequence of chapels in the Sacro Monte of Orta (Photo C. Molinari, taken 2023).

Figure 6. The portal of the Sacro Monti d’Orta (Photo C. Molinari, taken 2023).

Sequential Design

All the Sacri Monti are based on the arrangement of a series of chapels along a path in the landscape. In particular, the Sacro Monte of Orta comprises twenty locations (chapels) organised following a specific route from the main portal to the top of the mountain, chapel by chapel, and finally to the church. The chapels are arranged in a specific order to create a sense of narrative and spiritual progression for visitors. The layout is designed to take visitors on a journey through St. Francis's life, beginning with his birth and childhood, continuing through his ministry and miracles, and ending with his death and legacy. The chapels are arranged in a way that creates a sense of depth and perspective, drawing visitors deeper into the narrative of St. Francis's life. The use of light and shadow, as well as the placement of sculptures and paintings, creates a sense of movement and drama, as if visitors are watching a cinematic story unfold before their eyes.

The chapels, even if similar, are each distinctive buildings, single and independent units that vary in form and style. In this sense, they can be considered fragments that only find a final, general sense according to the sequential design. Similarly to the sequence of shields realised by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) for the Saint Peter’s baldachin, where the ‘true ‘image’ of this montage only emerges in the sequential juxtaposition of its constituent ‘frames’. ‘Each shield, in itself means nothing. Viewed in isolation, it is dumb’ (Eisenstein 1989, 128).

The sequence—marked and represented by a series of pointing hands painted on each chapel (Figure 7)—is the critical element of the entire design of this site. Beyond the architectural projects for the individual buildings, and the sculptures and paintings that define the interiors, the Sacri Monti are based on a larger scale design. In this sense, the landscape is not defined by chance, but follows a specific design project, ideally studied to make the Sacro Monte a kinaesthetic system, able to bodily engage the pilgrim (Karmon 2016, 57). The experience of these places was indeed based not simply on the religious scenes depicted inside the chapels but especially on the movement from chapel to chapel. The Sacro Monte required pilgrims to experience the places with their whole bodies and senses:

the site was designed to physically challenge while simultaneously mentally engage pilgrims as they made their way through the steep and winding landscape of the site. Pilgrims interacted with visual and other sensory environments while engaged in body–mind practices, thus creating the conditions for heightened somaesthetic encounter. (Terry-Fritsch 2014–15, 113)

In order to obtain this bodily rich experience, the landscape design needed to be integrated with the architecture of buildings, sculptures and paintings. The Sacri Monti, in this sense, are multimedia and interactive devices (Lasansky 2017; Karmon 2016), usually developed following one general plan. This plan is a global site design through which the devotional ‘path’ and the ‘variety’, represented by each chapel/fragment, were studied according to the narrative line. Despite the fact that the construction of the Sacri Monti could last many centuries, the overall view remained unique, supporting the creation of these logical and coherent projects, using a method of sequential design very innovative for the period (Quercioli 2005). This is the case of the Sacro Monte of Orta, which still attracts pilgrims and visitors following the sequential path. As in picturesque gardens, after encountering one object (one chapel), it is always evident to the visitor which is the next. Each chapel is visually connected to the next thanks to a perfectly orchestrated sequential design.

Figure 7. (a) and (b). Two of the painted hands on the chapels, pointing the direction for visiting the next chapel following the right sequence. (Photo C. Molinari, taken 2022).

Natural Landscape

The Sacri Monti are similar to many other Christian devotional paths in their strong relationship with the landscape (Coleman and Elsner 1994). At the same time, the Sacri Monti were all realised upon the top of a mountain, usually in idyllic contexts (Leigheb 2004). At Orta, more specifically, the landscape is one of the most critical elements of the design, and all the chapels, as well as the path, were realised in relationship to it. This strong connection with the landscape and the striking views of the lake, the island and the mountains made the Sacro Monte of Orta a fascinating and enchanting place (Babich 2013, 246). Topography, vegetation, and views are instruments to develop the project, to increase the suggestion of the ‘garden’ and to involve the believer better. The photographic sequence of the chapels in the landscape presented here (Figure 8) demonstrates how the buildings in the Sacro Monte of Orta are surrounded by nature. The general organisation of the place has been developed considering, first of all, the morphology of the mountain: the direction and shapes of the devotional path, the specific position of chapels and the scenes were chosen accordingly to the landscape. Vegetation is almost an architectural material used to frame the chapels and define their sceneries.

Figure 8. The sequence of chapels sited in the landscape at the Sacro Monti d’Orta, (a) Upper row [images 8.1–8.5]: chapels I to V., (b) centre row [images 8.6–8.10]: chapels VI to X., (c) lower row [images 8.11–8.19]: chapels XI to XX. (Photo C. Molinari, taken 2022).

Furthermore, the design of the landscape imposes a strong narrative sequence, suggesting the order in which the believer should visit the chapels with the use of specific views and visual devices designed through nature. In the Sacro Monte di Ossuccio, the chapels were sited at a regular interval of 10 m of height difference (Mele and De Paolis 2013), but in Orto the narrative structure that defines the position of the chapels in the landscape. For instance, the chapel on the top of the mountain is not the final one in the sequence but the most cathartic, in which Saint Francesco received the stigmata. This is the moment in which God reveals himself; thus, the point closer to the sky was chosen to represent it. The decision to build this chapel on the highest point of the path, is revealing of a clear, intentional design, in which the narrative line is the main guideline used to define the Sacro Monte of Orta. The typical choice in the other Sacri Monti, as well as in calvaries or ways of the cross, is to have the final chapel at the top of the hill, representing the climax of the pilgrim’s route, the conclusion of the sacrifice undertaken. In the Sacro Monte of Orta, however, the story is the key: Saint Francesco is the main character, and therefore, the Saint’s climax has to be represented in the chapel at the top of the mountain.

Finally, considering the use of nature, it is essential to note a fundamental difference between the Sacro Monte of Varallo and the one in Orta. In Varallo, the landscape design follows compositional rules related to the Renaissance: buildings are organised considering ratios and perspectives, and gardens and paths are more regular and controlled, with the final goal of creating an ideal and perfect city of faith. In the Sacro Monte of Orta, however, the aim is to create a more emotional connection with the believers, and so the landscape becomes more critical and considered for its natural and wild features. The approach to vegetation, in particular, shows in the Sacro Monte a kind of Pre-Enlightened naturalism which removes every type of enclosure and geometries of gardens. As explained by Stefano Perrone, an expert on the Sacri Monti, using the words of the Italian art scholar, Carlo Giulio Argan (1909–1992):

Men do not educate anymore the nature following principles of their reason or their feeling, but it is nature itself that contains the pure values of beauty and goodness; clearing the fog of social preconceptions, nature educates men to rediscover their deep naturalness meant as a both ethical and aesthetical value. (Perrone 1991, 71)

Mise-en-scène

An essential character in creating the Sacro Monte of Orta was Carlo Bescapè (1550–1615), the Bishop of Novara. Friend and collaborator of Saint Carlo Borromeo (1538–1584), he was the one who followed the projects when Borromeo died in 1584 and who was able to guide the Sacri Monte movement after the Council of Trento (Mattioli Carcano 2005; Tuniz 2005). Bescapè organised the Sacro Monte of Varallo and, subsequently, the Sacro Monte of Orta, with scrupulous attention to the story narrated and modified every detail differing from Saint Bonaventura texts:

[…] the attention to the figurative datum, particularly the Holy Scriptures adherence, guides the chapels staging. Moreover, to allow an emotional attendance of the spectator with everything represented, a set of elements are put in place to create the necessary expectations for the illusionistic enjoyment of the work. (Manino and Zich 2017, 2)

The main goal was to educate all people and make all the scenes as clear and engaging as possible. Bescapè prescribed, for example, that every character who appears more than one time in different chapels had to be constantly made with the same features: even if different artists realised them, they had to be recognisable to the observer, defining a narrative sequence consequently more understandable. For the same reason, Bescapè also changed the position of some chapels and redesigned some scenes (Mattioli Carcano 2005). The final result is a series of twenty scenes describing the life of Saint Francesco through some of the main episodes narrated by Saint Bonaventura (Figure 9). The chapels were thought of as stages, representing a different, new reality: they were a kind of popular theatre in which time and space are twisted by the story (Leigheb 2004).

Figure 9. The Sacra Monti d’Orta narrative displayed in the chapel interiors, upper row [images 9.1–9.6], chapels I to V., centre row [images 9.7–9.13], chapels VI to XI., lower row [images 9.14–9.19]: chapels XII to XX. (Photo C. Molinari, taken 2022).

[…] a series of interactive spaces housed in independent architectural units, each containing life-sized wooden or terracotta sculptures of Biblical figures adorned with real hair, clothes and shoes, and situated in frescoed narratival environment. (Karmon 2016, 112)

The spiritual experience and illusion of being in a different and faraway place were crucial elements in developing the design of Sacri Monti. The believers were surrounded by a parallel world in which every detail was studied to increase the pathos. The use of colour and lights, the ensemble groups and the exaggerated facial expressions: everything was designed to transform the pilgrim into ‘an active participant in the sacred drama’ (Lasansky 2017, 319).

The Sacri Monti were an attraction for local people, financed by the charitable contributions of wealthy families, and conceived of almost like today’s theme parks. In particular, in the Sacro Monte d'Orta, the architectonic style of Cleto da Castelletto, although in a measure still referred to the classical model of Galeazzo Alessi's (1512–1572) chapels in Varallo, is also characterised by a strong desire to involve the spectator. Indeed, the Sacro Monte of Orta had a theatrical mark typical of the Baroque, which gave, together with the instructions of Bescapè, more credibility to the narrative sequence. Characters are proposed with direct immediacy, usually using persons taken from everyday life as models: everything was made to involve and to inspire the observant. In this way, Cleto made the scenes full of naturalness, creating, as Franciscans and Bescapè wanted, a popular place where every believer could empathise with Saint Francesco and his story. As Allie Terry-Fritsch, an expert on Italian Renaissance suggests, these scenes can be called an early form of ‘meraviglia’, or ‘wonder’, considering their dramatic and theatrical aesthetics (2014–15, 126).

It is however essential to underline that these scenes were not open to visitors even if created in three dimensions. Pilgrims were obliged to look at the sculptures and painting from behind a metal grating, thus according to the specific perspective imposed by the designers. This peculiar, forced vision in two dimensions (Bell 2014) is another similarity with picturesque gardens. The experience is totally based on movement along the path, and the fragments are elements to encounter simply visually (Bruno 2002; Buck and Molinari 2022).

Conclusion

Considering the three main design features theorised above—sequential design, natural landscape and mise-en-scène—we can finally argue that the Sacro Monte of Orta is an early example avant la lettre of the picturesque. In particular, it is essential to note that all three main features of the Picturesque have in the Sacri Monti been applied because of the fundamental role of narrative. The need to create and tell a story to believers convincingly and engagingly is the fundamental purpose on which the Sacri Monti are based and is the point around which all the design decisions have been taken. Therefore, architects, sculptors and designers related to the creation of Sacri Monti adopted specific methods to recreate a credible and involving narrative for the believers.

Beyond the design principles, it is essential to underline the numerous differences between Sacri Monti and picturesque gardens for obvious reasons of historical distance. In any case, this analysis has demonstrated how the Sacro Monte d'Orta project is based on the experience of the faithful, following an aesthetics of perception, in which the body and its senses become actors of space. As highlighted by the art scholar Dabney Townsend,

The aesthetics of spectatorhood […] is the result of the empirical isolation of the experiencer as an individual container of ideas. […] Thus the picturesque in its changing theoretical stances through the eighteenth century provides an important part of the development of aesthetic autonomy and a theory of expressive qualities, particularly as they are understood as qualities of mind. (Townsend 1997, 375)

In the case of the Sacred Mountains, the experience is still profoundly religious, and the aesthetics is therefore also moral in the Kantian sense. Still, the creation of this fictitious, isolated and protected reality, where nature and architecture become scenic objects to be modelled to create a garden of delights, represents the beginning of the change in post-Renaissance aesthetic theories, which the Picturesque later came to fulfil.

The holy mountains of Italy have a rich history of religious significance, cultural heritage, and architectural prowess. Among them, the Sacro Monte of Orta stands out as a prominent example of the picturesque design methods employed in creating these holy places. This paper has explored the architectural features of the Sacro Monte of Orta and how they contribute to its unique aesthetic and spiritual appeal. The cinematic arrangement of its chapels in the sequence is the critical design feature of the Sacro Monte of Orta. The chapels are designed to create the illusion of a story, with the visitor walking along the path into the landscape being the primary recipient able to connect the several episodes. Using natural materials and textures also contributes to the picturesque design of the Sacro Monte of Orta. The chapels are built using local stone, and the relationship with the vegetation is carefully designed as this was an architectural material. This creates a sense of harmony between the manufactured structures and the natural environment surrounding them. The picturesque design methods in creating these holy places have created a spiritual and emotional connection with visitors transcending time and space.

The focus of the Sacro Monti on narrative and user engagement moved the design of the ‘gardens’ from the rational geometric approach of the Renaissance to an early modern idea of experience based on views organised through movement. In this sense, the innovative design method of the Sacri Monti, particularly the one used to realise the Sacro Monte of Orta, can be defined as picturesque or pre-modern. Indeed, following the critical lines already traced by several scholars,

From French architectural historian Auguste Choisy’s interpretation of Greek architecture, to British historian Colin Rowe’s reflection about compositive methods, the Picturesque seems to be a never-ending source of ideas for modern architectural and landscape theory. (Buck and Molinari 2022, 523)

In this sense, the Picturesque is one of the several moments in the history of architecture that contributed to the beginning of modernity, and the Sacro Monte of Orta should be considered a part of this process.

Acknowledgements

A previous version of this research has initially been presented at SPACE International Conference 2019 on Architectural History and Theory, and published in the Conference Proceedings as ‘Sequences in the Landscape: The Sacri Monti as Early Picturesque Devices’, Proceedings: Architectural History and Theory, 2019, 48–55, ISBN 978-1-9995911-6-8 by SPACE Studies Publications.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Carla Molinari

Carla Molinari is a Senior Lecturer in Architecture at Anglia Ruskin University. She holds a PhD in Theory and Criticism of Architecture from Roma Sapienza University. Her research includes innovative interpretations of sequence and montage, theories of the picturesque, cinematic design methods, theory and history of space, intersections between architecture and visual arts, and narrative strategies for urban interventions.