Essays on Life 



are all talking at once. The Virgin is alone 

 silent. 



3. The Nativity is much damaged and hard 

 to see. The treatment bears no analogy to 

 that adopted by Gaudenzio Ferrari at Varallo. 

 There is one pleasing young shepherd stand- 

 ing against the wall, but some figures have no 

 doubt (as in others of the chapels) disappeared, 

 and those that remain have been so shifted 

 from their original positions that very little 

 idea can be formed of what the group was 

 like when Tabachetti left it. 



4. The Purification. I can hardly say why 

 this chapel should remind me, as it does, of 

 the Circumcision chapel at Varallo, for there 

 are more figures here than space at Varallo 

 will allow. It cannot be pretended that any 

 single figure is of extraordinary merit, but 

 amongst them they tell their story with ex- 

 cellent effect. Two, those of St. Joseph and 

 St. Anna (?), that doubtless were once more 

 important factors in the drama, are now so 

 much in corners near the window that they 

 can hardly be seen. 



5. The Dispute in the Temple. This subject 



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