Chapter 13 - Page 2

I have studied these works for the last twenty years with every desire not to let a false impression run away with me, and that each successive visit to Varallo, while tending somewhat to lower my estimate of Giovanni D'Enrico--unless when he is at his very best--has increased my admiration for both Gaudenzio Ferrari and Tabachetti, as also, I would add, for the sculptor of the Massacre of the Innocents chapel.

It cannot, indeed, be pretended that Tabachetti's style is as pure as that of his great predecessor, but what it has lost in purity it has gained in freedom and vigour. It is not possible that an artist working in the years 1580-1585 should present to us traces of the archaism which even the most advanced sculptors of half a century earlier had not wholly lost. The stronger a man is the more certainly will he be modified by his own times as well as modify them, and in an age of barocco we must not look for Donatellos. Still, the more Tabachetti's work is examined the more will it be observed that he took no harm from the barocco, but kept its freedom while avoiding its coarseness and exaggeration. For reasons explained in an earlier chapter his figures are not generally portraits, but he is eminently realistic, and if he did the Vecchietto, of which I have given a photograph at the beginning of this book, he must be credited with one of the most living figures that have ever been made--a figure which rides on the very highest crest of the wave, and neither admits possibility of further advance towards realism without defeating its own purpose, nor shows even the slightest sign of decadence. Of the figure of the Countess of Serravalle, to which I have already referred, Torrotti said it was so much admired in his day that certain Venetian cavaliers offered to buy it for its weight in gold, but that the mere consideration of such an offer would be high treason (lesa Maesta) to the Sacro Monte. Fassola and Torrotti, as well as Bordiga and Cusa, are evidently alive to the fact that as far as sculpture goes we have here the highest triumph attained on the Sacro Monte of Varallo.

I had better perhaps give the words in which Caccia describes the work. In the 1586 edition, we read, in the preliminary prose part, as follows:-

"Come N. S. e condotto alla morte con la croce alle spalle, qual si vede tutto di rilievo."

The poetical account runs thus:-

"Si trova poi in una Chiesa nera Con spettacolo fiero accompagnato Da soldati, e da gente molto fiera, Con la Croce alle spalle incaminato Christo Giesu in mezzo a l'empia schiera, Seguendolo Giovanni addolorato, Che di Giesu sostien la sconsolata Madre, da Maddalena accompagnata."

In the 1591 edition, the prose description of the work runs; -

"Come N. S. e condotto alla morte con la Croce sopra delle spalle, quali si vedeno tutto di rilieuo bellissi."

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I have no