Chapel Of St- Grat - Vulmix: Free Entry

Description

Few people remember this, but when Bourg-Saint-Maurice was an almost exclusively rural commune, Vulmix, on a vast sloping ledge of the sunny side of the hill, was the largest village! It is not surprising that its chapel should be devoted to St. Grat, protector of the harvests.
The small single nave, with its lancet arched vault, leads into the chancel, protected behind a solid wooden partition and featuring a decorative aspect typical of the Baroque period: an altarpiece. Its painting illustrates the saints venerated in the village, at the foot of a Madonna with Child: St. Grat, St. Guérin and St. Sébastien. The painting is flanked by twisted columns, cherub heads, scrollwork and other curves, and its message is completed by the presence of other colourful statues of these essential protectors of the flock and of men.
The murals that cover the walls of the chapel were realised in around 1460 by artists with support from Duke Amédée VIII of Savoy and his son Louis. Even at this time, long before the Baroque period, images were used in support of the catechesis: the images painted here, using a technique resembling fresco, tell of the epic pilgrimage of St. Grat to the Holy Land to recover the head of St. John the Baptist and bring it to Rome. In a gesture of charity, the pope gifted the holy bishop - and his diocese of Aoste - the lower jaw from the relic! This jaw was brought back by St. Grat to his cathedral, where it has been piously preserved ever since.