The acquisition of the archive of Stefania Stefani Perrone (Pisa 1928 - Varallo 2018) by the University of Milan – where she graduated and studied with Anna Maria Brizio (whose assistant she would be) – has ushered in the process of sorting the material. One of the first results to emerge is an unfinished, but well-prepared article on the D’Enrico brothers.
It had long been known to scholars that Stefani Perrone had information on these subjects. It is now clear – thanks to the finding of documents, transcribed in a 19th-century miscellany, relating to payments for the chapels of Sacro Monte in Varallo in the early 17th century – that Tanzio also worked there as a sculptor. It is also possible to draw certain conclusions about the dating of his work as a fresco painter. To his brother Melchiorre, among other things, can be assigned the modelled statues for the Chapel of the ‘First appearance before Pilate’, the musician angels and a shepherd in Chapel 7 which in the past, by Testori, was even believed to be the work of Gaudenzio Ferrari. Giovanni d’Enrico, as well as being known as an entrepreneur of architectural work, is for the first time mentioned as a sculptor of statues for the Sacro Monte, being fully active as such from 1606, with records of payments that fill in that total silence on his early activity as a sculptor. There is also information on Morazzone and Rocca.