Ex Voto | Page 6

visit to Orta, and did three or four figures in the left hand part of
the foreground of the Canonisation of St. Francis chapel. At
Montrigone, a mile or so below Borgo-Sesia station, I believe him to
have done at least two or three figures, which are very much in his
manner, and not at all like either Giacomo Ferro or Giovanni D'Enrico,
to whom they are usually assigned. These figures are some twenty-five
years later than 1610, and tend to show that Tabachetti, as an old man
of over seventy, paid a third visit to the Val-Sesia.
The substance of the foregoing paragraphs is published at greater
length, and with illustrations, in the number of the Universal Review
for November 1888, and to which I must refer my readers. I have,
however, here given the pith of all that I have yet been able to find out
about Tabachetti since "Ex Voto" was published. I should like to add
the following in regard to other chapels.
Signor Arienta has found a 1523 scrawled on the frescoes of the
Crucifixion chapel. I do not think this shows necessarily that the work
was more than begun at that date. He has also found a monogram,
which we believe to be Gaudenzio Ferrari's, on the central shield with a
lion on it, given in the illustration facing p. 210. On further
consideration, I feel more and more inclined to think that the frescoes
in this chapel have been a good deal retouched.
I hardly question that the Second Vision of St. Joseph chapel is by
Tabachetti, as also the Woman of Samaria. The Christ in this last
chapel is a restoration. In a woodcut of 1640 the position of the figures
is reversed, but nothing more than the positions.

Lastly, the Virgin's mother does not have eggs east of Milan. It is a
Valsesian custom to give eggs beaten up with wine and sugar to women
immediately on their confinement, and I am told that the eggs do no
harm though not according to the rules. I am told that Valsesian
influence must always be suspected when the Virgin's mother is having
eggs.
November 30, 1888.
Note.--A copy of this postscript can be easily inserted into a bound
copy, and will be forwarded by Messrs. TRUBNER & Co. on receipt of
stamped and addressed envelope.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.

In the preface to "Alps and Sanctuaries" I apologised for passing over
Varallo-Sesia, the most important of North Italian sanctuaries, on the
ground that it required a book to itself. This book I will now endeavour
to supply, though well aware that I can only imperfectly and unworthily
do so. To treat the subject in the detail it merits would be a task beyond
my opportunities; for, in spite of every endeavour, I have not been able
to see several works and documents, without which it is useless to try
and unravel the earlier history of the sanctuary. The book by Caccia,
for example, published by Sessali at Novara in 1565, and reprinted at
Brescia in 1576, is sure to turn up some day, but I have failed to find it
at Varallo, Novara (where it appears in the catalogue, but not on the
shelves), Milan, the Louvre, the British Museum, and the Bodleian
Library. Through the kindness of Sac. Ant. Ceriani, I was able to learn
that the Biblioteca Ambrosiana possessed what there can be little doubt
is a later edition of this book, dated 1587, but really published at the
end of 1586, and another dated 1591, to which Signor Galloni in his
"Uomini e fatti celebri di Valle-Sesia" (p. 110) has called attention as
the first work ever printed at Varallo. But the last eight of the
twenty-one years between 1565 and 1586 were eventful, and much

could be at once seen by a comparison of the 1565, 1576, and 1586
[1587] editions, about which speculation is a waste of time while the
earlier works are wanting. I have been able to gather two or three
interesting facts by a comparison of the 1586 and 1591 editions, and do
not doubt that the date, for example, of Tabachetti's advent to Varallo
and of his great Calvary Chapel would be settled within a very few
years if the missing books were available.
Another document which I have in vain tried to see is the plan of the
Sacro Monte as it stood towards the close of the sixteenth century,
made by Pellegrino Tibaldi with a view to his own proposed alterations.
He who is fortunate enough to gain access to this plan- -which I saw for
a few minutes in 1884, but which is now no longer at Varallo--will find
a great deal made clear to him which he will otherwise be hardly