sixteenth and not of the eighteenth century—­with a few obvious exceptions 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 designed in a plastic material by Tabachetti, and reproduced in wood by the best local wood-sculptor available, with the exception of a few figures cut by the artist himself.

We ask, then, at what period in his life did Tabachetti design these chapels, and what led to his coming to such an out-of-the-way place as Saas at all?  We should remember that, according both to Fassola and Torrotti (writing in 1671 and 1686 respectively), Tabachetti {195} became insane about the year 1586 or early in 1587, after having just begun the Salutation chapel.  I have explained in Ex Voto that I do not believe this story.  I have no doubt that Tabachetti was declared to be mad, but I believe this to have been due to an intrigue, set on foot in order to get a foreign artist out of the way, and to secure the Massacre of the Innocents chapel, at that precise time undertaken, for Gio.  Ant.  Paracca, who was an Italian.

Or he may have been sacrificed in order to facilitate the return of the workers in stucco whom he had superseded on the Sacro Monte.  He may have been goaded into some imprudence which was seized upon as a pretext for shutting him up; at any rate, the fact that when in 1587 he inherited his father’s property at Dinant, his trustee (he being expressly stated to be “expatrie”) was “datif,” “dativus,” appointed not by himself but by the court, lends colour to the statement that he was not his own master at the time; for in later kindred deeds, now at Namur, he appoints his own trustee.  I suppose, then, that Tabachetti was shut up in a madhouse at Varallo for a considerable time, during which I can find no trace of him, but that eventually he escaped or was released.

Whether he was a fugitive, or whether he was let out from prison, he would in either case, in all reasonable probability, turn his face homeward.  If he was escaping, he would make immediately for the Savoy frontier, within which Saas then lay.  He would cross the Baranca above Fobello, coming down on to Ponte Grande in the Val Anzasca.  He would go up the Val Anzasca to Macugnaga, and over the Monte Moro, which would bring him immediately to Saas.  Saas, therefore, is the nearest and most natural place for him to make for, if he were flying from Varallo, and here I suppose him to have halted.