Chapel 43 - The Holy Sepulcher

It depicts the place where Jesus was buried in Jerusalem and is divided into two spaces: the first one with the figure of Magdalene in a niche, the second one with the stone sarcophagus that contains a wooden sculpture depicting the dead Jesus, dating back to the late fifteenth century. On either side of the entrance door two small niches house the skull of the founder of the complex, Father Bernardino Caimi, and a fragment of the column of the Flagellation.
The chapel of the Sepulcher was the first chapel built on the Sacred Mount and, as the inscription on the entrance door explains, it was built at the expense of the Varallese nobleman Milano Scarognino, as part of the project for the reproduction of the holy places conceived by Caimi "so that Jerusalem could be seen by those who could not travel", and it was completed in 1491.
Preserved from the ancient setting were the stone sarcophagus, the polychrome wooden statue of the dead Jesus and that of the Magdalene, a mannequin covered with painted fabric. They were completed only in the visible parts (the head and hands) in the first decade of the sixteenth century.
At the beginning of the eighteenth century the oratory was built under the cell of the Sepulcher. The walls and vaults were painted by Tarquinio Grassi from Romagnano (1707) and the paintings were made by Grassi and the artist Lucini from Milan.
In 1945-1946 the walls of the Sepulcher were decorated by the Bacchetta brothers and the new marble urn was created. In 1947 the baroque altar of the oratory was built.

Outside the Sepulcher, in a niche, there is a terracotta statue of Bernardino Caimi holding a model of the Sacred Mount, made by Giovanni d'Enrico in 1638.  The stone, that tradition says that it was found during the excavations for the construction of the Sepulcher, was walled under the arcade, not far away. This stone would be very similar to the one that closed the Sepulcher entrance in Jerusalem.