Art and Science 



writer may have gone by the still existing 

 1709 on the Ascension chapel, whereas this 

 date may in fact have referred to a restoration, 

 and not to an original construction. There 

 is nothing, as I have said, in the choice of the 

 chapel on which the date appears, to suggest 

 that it was intended to govern the others. I 

 have explained that the work is isolated and 

 exotic. It is by one in whom Flemish and 

 Italian influences are alike equally predom- 

 inant; by one who was saturated with 

 Tabachetti's Varallo work, and who can 

 improve upon it, but over whom the other 

 Varallo sculptors have no power. The style 

 of the work is of the sixteenth and not of the 

 eighteenth century with a few obvious ex- 

 ceptions that suit the year 1709 exceedingly 

 well. Against such considerations as these, 

 a statement made at the beginning of this 

 century referring to a century earlier, and a 

 promiscuous date upon one chapel, can carry 

 but little weight. I shall assume, therefore, 

 henceforward, that we have here groups de- 

 signed in a plastic material by Tabachetti, 

 and reproduced in wood by the best local 



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