remaining at Varallo, and described as finished in the 1586 edition
of Caccia. Tabachetti, therefore, must have left home very young,
and probably went straight to Varallo. In 1586 or 1587 we lose sight
of him till 1590 or 1591, when he went to Crea, where he did about
forty chapels--almost all of which have perished.

On again visiting Milan I found in the Biblioteca Nazionale a guide-
book to the Sacro Monte, which was not in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana,
and of whose existence I had never heard. This guide-book was
published in 1606 and reissued in 1610; it mentions all changes since
1590, and even describes chapels not yet in existence, but it says
nothing about Tabachetti's First Vision of St. Joseph chapel--the
only one of his chapels not given as completed in the 1590 edition of
Caccia. I had assumed too hastily that this chapel was done just
after the 1590 edition of Caccia had been published, and just before
Tabachetti left for Crea in 1590 or 1591, whereas it now appears that
it was done about 1610, during a short visit paid by the sculptor to
Varallo some twenty years after he had left it.

Finding that Tabachetti returned to Varallo about 1610, I was able to
understand two or three figures in the Ecce Homo chapel which I had
long thought must be by Tabachetti, but had not ventured to ascribe
to him, inasmuch as I believed him to have finally left Varallo some
twenty years before the Ecce Homo chapel was made. I have now no
doubt that he lent a hand to Giovanni D'Enrico with this chapel, in
which he has happily left us his portrait signed with a V (doubtless
standing for W, a letter which the Italians have not got), cut on the
hat before baking, and invisible from outside the chapel.

Signor Arienta had told me there was a seal on the back of a figure