Transcribed from the 1890 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition byDavid Price,
EX VOTO:
AN ACCOUNTOF
The Sacro Monte or NewJerusalem
at Varallo-Sesia
WITH SOMENOTICE OF
TABACHETTI’S REMAINING WORKAT THE
SANCTUARY OF CREA.
BY
SAMUEL BUTLER,
AUTHOR OF “ALPS ANDSANCTUARIES,” “EREWHON,” ETC.
“Il n’a a que deux ennemis de lareligion—le trop peu, et le trop; et des deux
le trop est mille fois le plus dangereux.”—L’Abbé Mabillon, 1698.
Op.9.
LONDON
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET.
1890.
All rights reserved.
AI VARALLESI E VALSESIANI
L’AUTORE
RICONOSCENTE.
PREFACE.
The illustrations to this book aremainly collotype photographs by Messrs. Maclure, Macdonald &Co., of Glasgow. Notwithstanding all their care, it cannotbe pretended that the result is equal to what would have beenobtained from photogravure; I found, however, that to giveanything like an adequate number of photogravures would have madethe book so expensive that I was reluctantly compelled to abandonthe idea.
As these sheets leave my hands, my attention is called to apleasant article by Miss Alice Greene about Varallo, thatappeared in The Queen for Saturday, April 21, 1888. The article is very nicely illustrated, and gives a good idea ofthe place. Of the Sacro Monte Miss Greenesays:—“On the Sacro Monte the tableaux are producedin perpetuity, only the figures are not living, they areterra-cotta statues painted and moulded in so life-like a waythat you feel that, were a man of flesh and blood to get mixed upwith the crowd behind the grating, you would have hard work todistinguish him from the figures that have never hadlife.”
I should wish to modify in some respects the conclusionarrived at on pp. 148, 149, about Michael Angelo Rossetti’shaving been the principal sculptor of the Massacre of theInnocents chapel. There can be no doubt that Rossetti didthe figure which he has signed, and several others in thechapel. One of those which are probably by him (the soldierwith outstretched arm to the left of the composition) appears inthe view of the chapel that I have given to face page 144, but onconsideration I incline against the supposition of my text,i.e., that the signature should be taken as governing thewhole work, or at any rate the greater part of it, and leantowards accepting the external authority, which, quantumvaleat, is all in favour of Paracca.