Ex Voto | Page 5

did about forty
chapels--almost all of which have perished.
On again visiting Milan I found in the Biblioteca Nazionale a guide-
book to the Sacro Monte, which was not in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana,
and of whose existence I had never heard. This guide-book was
published in 1606 and reissued in 1610; it mentions all changes since
1590, and even describes chapels not yet in existence, but it says
nothing about Tabachetti's First Vision of St. Joseph chapel--the only
one of his chapels not given as completed in the 1590 edition of Caccia.
I had assumed too hastily that this chapel was done just after the 1590
edition of Caccia had been published, and just before Tabachetti left for
Crea in 1590 or 1591, whereas it now appears that it was done about
1610, during a short visit paid by the sculptor to Varallo some twenty
years after he had left it.
Finding that Tabachetti returned to Varallo about 1610, I was able to
understand two or three figures in the Ecce Homo chapel which I had
long thought must be by Tabachetti, but had not ventured to ascribe to
him, inasmuch as I believed him to have finally left Varallo some
twenty years before the Ecce Homo chapel was made. I have now no
doubt that he lent a hand to Giovanni D'Enrico with this chapel, in
which he has happily left us his portrait signed with a V (doubtless

standing for W, a letter which the Italians have not got), cut on the hat
before baking, and invisible from outside the chapel.
Signor Arienta had told me there was a seal on the back of a figure in
the Journey to Calvary chapel; on examining this I found it to show a
W, with some kind of armorial bearings underneath. I have not been
able to find anything like these arms, of which I give a sketch herewith:
they have no affinity with those of the de Wespin family, unless the
cups with crosses under them are taken as modifications of the
three-footed caldrons which were never absent from the arms of Dinant
copper-beaters. Tabachetti (for I shall assume that the seal was placed
by him) perhaps sealed this figure as an afterthought in 1610, being
unable to cut easily into the hard-baked clay, and if he could have
Italianised the W he would probably have done so. I should say that I
arrived at the Ecce Homo figure as a portrait of Tabachetti before I
found the V cut upon the hat; I found the V on examining the portrait to
see if I could find any signature. It stands next to a second portrait of
Leonardo da Vinci by Gaudenzio Ferrari, taken into the Ecce Homo
chapel, doubtless, on the demolition of some earlier work by
Gaudenzio on or near the same site. I knew of this second portrait of
Leonardo da Vinci when I published my first edition, but did not
venture to say anything about it, as thinking that one life-sized portrait
of a Leonardo da Vinci by a Gaudenzio Ferrari was as much of a find at
one time as my readers would put up with. I had also known of the V
on Tabachetti's hat, but, having no idea that his name was de Wespin,
had not seen why this should help it to be a portrait of Tabachetti, and
had allowed the fact to escape me.
The figure next to Scotto in the Ecce Homo chapel is, I do not doubt, a
portrait of Giovanni D'Enrico. This may explain the tradition at Varallo
that Scotto is Antonio D'Enrico, which cannot be. Next to Giovanni
D'Enrico stands the second Leonardo da Vinci, and next to Leonardo,
as I have said, Tabachetti. In the chapel by Gaudenzio, from which they
were taken, the figures of Leonardo and Scotto probably stood side by
side as they still do in the Crucifixion chapel. I supposed that
Tabachetti and D'Enrico, who must have perfectly well known who
they were, separated them in order to get Giovanni D'Enrico nearer the

grating. It was the presumption that we had D'Enrico's portrait between
Scotto and Leonardo, and the conviction that Tabachetti also had
worked in the chapel, that led me to examine the very beautiful figure
on the father side of Leonardo to see if I could find anything to confirm
my suspicion that it was a portrait of Tabachetti himself.
I do not think there can be much doubt that the Vecchietto is also a
portrait of Tabachetti done some thirty years later than 1610, nor yet do
I doubt, now I know that he returned to Varallo in 1610, that the figures
of Herod and of Caiaphas are by him. I believe he also at this time paid
a short