nto execution. There are only three horses fully
shown, and one partly shown. They are all of the heavy Flemish type
adopted by Tabachetti at Varallo. The man kicking the fallen Christ and
the goitred man (with the same teeth missing), who are so conspicuous in
the Varallo Journey to Calvary, reappear here, only the kicking man has
much less nose than at Varallo, probably because (as explained) the nose
got whittled away and could not be whittled back again. I observe that
the kind of lapelled tunic which Tabachetti, and only Tabachetti, adopts
at Varallo, is adopted for the centurion in this chapel, and indeed
throughout the Saas chapels this particular form of tunic is the most
usual for a Roman soldier. The work is still a very striking one,
notwithstanding its translation into wood and the decay into which it has
been allowed to fall; nor can it fail to impress the visitor who is
familiar with this class of art as coming from a man of extraordinary
dramatic power and command over the almost impossible art of composing
many figures together effectively in all-round sculpture. Whether all
the figures are even now as Tabachetti left them I cannot determine, but
Mr. Selwyn has restored Simon the Cyrenian to the position in which he
obviously ought to stand, and between us we have got the chapel into
something more like order.

10. The Crucifixion. This subject was treated at Varallo not by
Tabachetti but by Gaudenzio Ferrari. It confirms therefore my opinion as
to the designer of the Saas chapels to find in them no trace of the
Varallo Crucifixion, while the kind of tunic which at Varallo is only
found in chapels wherein Tabachetti worked again appears here. The work
is in a deplorable state of decay. Mr. Selwyn has greatly improved the
arrangement of the figures, but even now they are not, I imagine, quite
as Tabachetti left them. The figure of Christ is greatly better in
technical execution than that of either of the two thieves; the folds of
the drapery alone will show this even to an unpractised eye. I do not
think there can be a doubt but that Tabachetti cut this figure himself,
as also those of the Magdalene and St. John, who stand at the foot of the
cross. The thieves are coarsely executed, with no very obvious
distinction between the penitent and the impenitent one, except that
there is a fiend painted on the ceiling over the impenitent thief. The
one horse introduced into the composition is again