very few years if the missing books were available.

Another document which I have in vain tried to see is the plan of the
Sacro Monte as it stood towards the close of the sixteenth century,
made by Pellegrino Tibaldi with a view to his own proposed
alterations. He who is fortunate enough to gain access to this plan-
-which I saw for a few minutes in 1884, but which is now no longer at
Varallo--will find a great deal made clear to him which he will
otherwise be hardly able to find out. Over and above the foregoing,
there is the inventory drawn up by order of Giambattista Albertino in
1614, and a number of other documents, to which reference will be
found in the pages of Bordiga, Galloni, Tonetti, and of the many
others who have written upon the Val Sesia and its history. A twelve
months' stay in the Val Sesia would not suffice to do justice to all
the interesting and important questions which arise wholesale as soon
as the chapels on the Sacro Monte are examined with any care. I
shall confine myself, therefore, to a consideration of the most
remarkable features of the Sacro Monte as it exists at present, and
to doing what I can to stimulate further study on the part of others.

I cannot understand how a field so interesting, and containing
treasures in so many respects unrivalled, can have remained almost
wholly untilled by the numerous English lovers of art who yearly
flock to Italy; but the fact is one on which I may perhaps be
congratulated, inasmuch as more shortcomings and errors of judgment
may be forgiven in my own book, in virtue of its being the first to
bring Varallo with any prominence before English readers. That
little is known about the Sacro Monte, even by the latest and best
reputed authorities on art, may be seen by turning to Sir Henry
Layard's recent edition of Kugler's "Handbook of Painting,"--a work