Caimi holding Varallo in his hands
The construction of the Sacro Monte began around 1490. The Franciscan friar Bernardino Caimi devised this place, ‘so that those who could not go on a pilgrimage there could see Jerusalem’. Bernardino Caimi had been the guardian of the sacred sites in Jerusalem. In the years following 1490 he oversaw the construction of a few simple buildings on this spur of rock overlooking the village of Varallo. The original chapels were sparsely decorated with statues and frescos which represented the most important places in the Holy Land.