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The Humour of Homer and Other Essays by Samuel Butler
page 37 of 297 (12%)
whatever the weather, he nearly always went into the country
walking; his map of the district for thirty miles round London is
covered all over with red lines showing where he had been. He
sometimes went out of town from Saturday to Monday, and for over
twenty years spent Christmas at Boulogne-sur-Mer.

There is a Sacro Monte at Varallo-Sesia with many chapels, each
containing life-sized statues and frescoes illustrating the life of
Christ. Butler had visited this sanctuary repeatedly, and was a
great favourite with the townspeople, who knew that he was studying
the statues and frescoes in the chapels, and who remembered that in
the preface to Alps and Sanctuaries he had declared his intention of
writing about them. In August, 1887, the Varallesi brought matters
to a head by giving him a civic dinner on the Mountain. Everyone
was present, there were several speeches and, when we were coming
down the slippery mountain path after it was all over, he said to
me:

"You know, there's nothing for it now but to write that book about
the Sacro Monte at once. It must be the next thing I do."

Accordingly, on returning home, he took up photography and,
immediately after Christmas, went back to Varallo to photograph the
statues and collect material. Much research was necessary and many
visits to out-of-the-way sanctuaries which might have contained work
by the sculptor Tabachetti, whom he was rescuing from oblivion and
identifying with the Flemish Jean de Wespin. One of these visits,
made after his book was published, forms the subject of "The
Sanctuary of Montrigone," reproduced in this volume. Ex Voto, the
book about Varallo, appeared in 1888, and an Italian translation by
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