_GAUDENZIO FERRARI_, _TABACHETTI_, _AND GIOVANNI D’ENRICO_.
BEFORE going through the various chapels _seriatim_, it may be well to
give a short account of three out of the four most interesting figures
among the numerous artists who worked on the Sacro Monte. By these I
mean, of course, Gaudenzio Ferrari, Tabachetti, Giovanni d’Enrico, and
the sculptor, whoever he may have been, of the Massacre of the Innocents
chapel. I take my account of Gaudenzio chiefly from Colombo’s admirable
work, and from the not less excellent notice by Signor Tonetti, that
appeared in the “Museo Storico ed Artistico Valsesiano” for July and
August 1885.
Gaudenzio Ferrari was born, according to the general belief, in 1484, but
Colombo shows reasons for thinking that this date is some four or five
years too late. His father was named Antonio Lanfranco or Franchino.
{90} He too was a painter, but nothing is known of him or his works
beyond the fact that he lived at Valduggia, where his son Gaudenzio was
born, married a woman whose surname was Vinzio, and was dead by 1510.
Gaudenzio in his early years several times signed his pictures with his
mother’s name, calling himself Vincius, De Vincio, or De Vince.
He is generally said to have studied first under Gerolamo Giovenone of
Vercelli, but this painter was not born till 1491, and we have the
authority of Lomazzo for saying that Gaudenzio’s chief instructor was
Stefano Scotto, a painter of Milan, who kept a school that was more or
less a rival to that of Leonardo da Vinci. I have myself no doubt that
Gaudenzio Ferrari has given Scotto’s portrait in at least three of the
works he has left behind him at Varallo, but will return to this subject
when I come to deal with the various places in which these portraits
appear. His first works of importance, or at least the earliest that
remain to us, are probably in or in the immediate vicinity of Varallo;
but little is known of his early years and work, beyond what is comprised
in the three pages that form the second chapter of Colombo’s book. There
is an early _ancona_ at La Rocca, near Varallo, another in the
_parocchia_ of Gattinara, and possibly a greatly damaged Pietà in the
cloisters of Sta. Maria delle Grazie at Varallo may be, as it is said to
be, an early work by Gaudenzio. Besides these, the wreck of the frescoes
on the Pietà chapel on the Sacro Monte, and other works on the same site,
now lost, belong to his earlier years.
Some believe that about the year 1506 he travelled to Perugia, Florence,
and Rome, where he made the acquaintance of Raphael, and perhaps studied
under Perugino, but Colombo has shown on what very slender, if any,
grounds this belief is based, and evidently inclines to the belief that
Gaudenzio never went to Rome, nor indeed, probably, outside Lombardy at
all. The only one of Gaudenzio’s works in which I can myself see
anything that may perhaps be called a trace of Umbrian influence, is in
the fresco of Christ disputing with the Doctors, in the chapel of Sta.
Margherita, in the Church of Sta. Maria delle Grazie at Varallo. This
fresco, as Signor Arienta has pointed out to me, contains a strong
reminiscence of the architectural background in Raphael’s school of
Athens; it was painted—so far as an illegible hieroglyphic signature can
be taken as read, and so far as internal evidence of style may be relied
upon, somewhere about the year. If Gaudenzio was for the moment
influenced by Raphael, he soon shook off the influence and formed a style
of his own, from which he did not depart, except as enriching and
enlarging his manner with advancing experience. Moreover, Colombo (p.
75) points out that the works by Raphael to which Gaudenzio’s Disputa is
supposed to present an analogy, were not finished till 1511, and are
hence probably later than Gaudenzio’s fresco. Perhaps both painters drew
from some common source.
In 1508 he was at Vercelli, and on the 26th of July signed a contract to
paint a picture for the church of S. Anna. He is described in the deed
as “Gaudentius de Varali.” He had by this time married his first wife,
by whom he had two children, Gerolamo and Margherita, born in 1508 and
1512. In 1510 he undertook to paint an altarpiece for the main church at
Arona, and completed it in 1511, signing the work “_Magister Gaudentius
de Vince_, _filius quondam magistri Lanfranchi habitator vallis
Siccidæ_.” In 1513 he painted the magnificent series of frescoes in the
church of Sta. Maria delle Grazie at Varallo, signing the work and dating
it, this time more legibly than he had done his earlier work in the
chapel of St. Margaret. In July 1514 he signed a contract to paint an
altarpiece for the Basilica of S. Gaudenzio at Novara. It was to be
completed within eighteen months from the date of the contract and
doubtless was so, but Gaudenzio found a good deal of difficulty in
getting his money, which was not paid in full till 1521. He is
occasionally met with at Novara and Vercelli between the years 1515 and
1524, but his main place of abode was Varallo.
No date can be positively assigned for his great Crucifixion chapel on
the Sacro Monte, but it belongs probably to the years 1524–1528. I have
already said that I can find no dates scrawled on the walls earlier than
1529. Such dates may be found yet, but if they are not found, it may be
assumed that the chapel was not thrown open to the public much before
that year. There is still a little relievo employed in the fresco
background, but not nearly so much as in the church of Sta. Maria delle
Grazie, and the increase of freedom is so evident that it is difficult
not to suppose an interval of a good many years between the two works. I
gather that by the year 1520 Gaudenzio had abandoned the use of gold and
of _relievo_ in painting, but he may have made an exception in the case
of a work which was to consist both of sculpture and painting; and there
is indeed a good deal to be said in favour of relievo in such a case, as
helping to unite the sculptured and painted portions of the work. Even
in the Magi chapel, the frescoes of which are several years later than
those in the Crucifixion chapel, there are still a few bosses of relievo
in the horses’ trappings. The date usually assigned to the Crucifixion
chapel is 1524, and, in default of more precise knowledge, we shall do
well to adhere to the date 1524–1528 already suggested.
About 1524 Gaudenzio painted a picture for the Sacristy of the Cathedral
of Novara, and Signor Tonetti says that the very beautiful picture behind
the high altar in the church of S. Gaudenzio at Varallo is generally
assigned to about the same period. He goes on to say that in 1526
Gaudenzio was certainly working at his native village of Valduggia,
where, in 1524 or 1525, a chapel had been erected in honour of S. Rocco,
who it was supposed had kept the Valsesia free from the plague that had
devastated other parts of Italy. This chapel Gaudenzio decorated with
frescoes that have now disappeared, but whose former existence is
recorded in an inscription placed in 1793, when the chapel was restored.
The inscription runs: “_Quod populus à peste denfensori erigebat an_
MDXXVI _Gaudentius Ferrarius patritius ex voto picturâ decorabat_,” &c.
In 1528 he transferred his abode to Vercelli, and about the same year
married again. His second wife was a widow who had a boy of ten years
old by Giovanni Antonio del Olmo, of Bergamo. Her name was Maria Mattia
della Foppa; she came from Morbegno in the Valtellina, and was of the
same family as Vincenzo Foppa, the reputed founder of the Milanese school
of painting. In 1532 he married his daughter Margherita to Domenico
Pertegalle, surnamed Festa, of Crevola near Varallo—he and his son
Gerolamo undertaking to give her a dowry of 500 _lire imperiale_, payable
in four years, and secured by mortgage on Gaudenzio’s house in Varallo.
In 1536 he painted the cupola of the church of the Madonna dei Miracoli
at Saronno; he then returned to Vercelli, but his abode and movements are
somewhat obscure till 1539, when it is certain that he left Varallo for
ever, settled in Milan, and died there between the years 1546 and 1549.
He does not appear to have continued to reside in Vercelli after 1536; we
may perhaps, therefore, think that he returned for a time to Varallo, and
that the frescoes on the Magi chapel should be given to some date between
1536 and 1539. They are certainly several years later than those in the
Crucifixion chapel; but I will return to these frescoes when I come to
the Magi chapel itself.
In 1539 he lost his son Gerolamo, and Colombo ascribes his departure from
Varallo to grief; but we cannot forget that in the year 1538 there broke
out a violent quarrel between the ecclesiastics of the Sacro Monte and
the lay governors of Varallo. Fassola says that in 1530 Gio. Ant.
Scarrognini, grandson of Milano Scarrognini, and some time afterwards
Gio. Angiolo Draghetti, were made Fabbricieri. The election of this last
was opposed by the ecclesiastics, who wished to see certain persons
elected who were already proctors of the convent, but the Vicini held
out, and carried the day. Party feeling ran so high, and the Fathers
wished to have such absolute control over the keys of the various money
boxes attached to the chapels, and over all other matters, that it may
well have been difficult for Gaudenzio to avoid coming into collision
with one or both of these contending parties; matters came to a head in
the year 1538, and his leaving Varallo for ever about this time may,
perhaps, be referred to his finding himself in an intolerable position,
as well as to the death of his son; but, however this may be, he sold his
house on the 5th of August, 1539, for seven hundred _lire imperiali_, and
for the rest of his life resided in Milan, where he executed several
important works, for which I must refer my readers to the pages of
Colombo.
The foregoing meagre notice is all that my space allows me to give
concerning the life of this great master. I will conclude it with a
quotation from Signor Morelli which I take from Sir Henry Layard’s recent
edition of Kugler’s Handbook of Painting (vol. ii. p. 424). Signor
Morelli is quoted as saying—
“Gaudenzio Ferrari is inferior to very few of his contemporaries, and
occasionally, as in some of those groups of men and women in the
great Crucifixion at Varallo, he might challenge comparison with
Raphael himself.”
It would be a bad business for Raphael if he did. Gaudenzio Ferrari was
what Raphael is commonly believed to have been. I do not mean, that he
was the prince of painters—such expressions are always hyperbolical;
there has been no prince of painters; I mean that Gaudenzio Ferrari’s
feeling was profound, whereas Raphael’s was at best only skin deep.
Nevertheless Signor Morelli is impressed with Ferrari’s greatness, and
places him, “for all in all, as regards inventive genius, dramatic life,
and picturesqueness * * far above Luini.” Bernardino Luini must stand so
very high that no one can be placed far above him; nevertheless, it is
hard not to think that Gaudenzio Ferrari was upon the whole the stronger
man.
TABACHETTI.
Great and fascinating as Gaudenzio was, I have already said that I find
Tabachetti a still more interesting figure. He had all Gaudenzio’s love
of beauty, coupled with a robustness, and freedom from mannerism and
self-repetition, that are not always observable in Gaudenzio’s work. If
Gaudenzio has never received anything approaching to his due meed of
praise, Tabachetti may be almost said never to have been praised at all.
In Varallo, indeed, and its neighbourhood he is justly regarded as a
giant, but the art world generally knows not so much as his name.
Cicognara, Lübke, and Perkins know not of his existence, nor of that of
Varallo itself, nor of any Valsesian school of sculpture. I have shown
that so admirable a writer as Mr. King never even alludes to him, while
the most recent authority of any reputed eminence on Italian art thinks
that the Titan of terra-cotta was a painter and a pupil of Gaudenzio
Ferrari.
Zani, indeed, in his “_Enciclopedia Metodica_,” {100a} and Nagler in his
“_Künstler Lexicon_,” {100b} to which works my attention was directed by
Mr. Donoghue of the British Museum, both mention Tabachetti. The first
calls him “_bravissimo_,” but makes him a Novarese, and calls him
“_Scultore_, _plasticalore_, _Pittore_,” and “_Incisore di stampe à
bulino_.” The second says that Bartoli (Opp. mor. I. 2), calls him a
Flemish sculptor; that he made forty small chapels and several hermitages
at Crea in the Monferrato district; and that he also worked much at
Varallo. I have in vain tried to find the passage in Bartoli to which
Nagler refers, and should be much obliged to any one who is more
fortunate if he will give me a fuller reference. The “Opp. mor.”
referred to appears to be a translation of the “Opuscoli morali” of L. B.
Alberti, published at Venice in 1568, which is too early for Tabachetti.
I have had Bartoli’s translation before me, but could discover nothing.
Nagler’s words run:—
“Tabachetti Johann Baptist, nennt Bartoli (Opp. mor. I. 2), einen
Niederläindischen Bildhauer, ohne seine Lebenzeit zu bestimmen. In
der Kirche U.L.F. Tu Creo (_sic_) (Montferrat) stellte er in vierzig
kleinen capellen die Geschichte der heil. Jungfrau, des Heilandes
und einiger Einsidler dar. Auch in Varallo arbeitete er vieles.”
If little is known about Gaudenzio we know still less about Tabachetti.
I do not believe that more is yet ascertained than I can give in the next
few pages. His name was Jean Baptiste Tabaquet, and he came from Dinant
in Belgium. This fact has only come to my knowledge within the last few
weeks, and I have been unable to go to Dinant and see whether anything
can be there made out about him. I will thankfully receive any
information which any one is good enough to send me upon this subject.
It is not known when he came to Varallo, but by the year 1586 his great
Calvary chapel was undoubtedly finished, as also, I imagine, the Adam and
Eve, and Temptation chapels, all three of which are mentioned in the 1586
edition of Caccia. In the 1590 edition, the abbreviated word “bellissi.”
has been added to the description of the Calvary chapel, as though it
were an oversight in the earlier edition to take no note of the
remarkable excellence of the work: there can be no doubt, therefore, that
Bordiga and the other principal authorities are wrong in dating this
chapel 1606. How much earlier it may be than 1586 I cannot determine
till the missing editions of Caccia are found, but there is not enough
other work of Tabachetti’s on the Sacro Monte to let us suppose that he
had worked there for very many years.
Both Fassola and Torrotti say that he began the Visit of Mary to
Elizabeth, but went mad, leaving the work to be completed by another
artist. It was generally supposed that this was the end of him, but
there can be no doubt that, if ever he went mad at all, it was only for a
short time, as a consequence of over-fatigue, and perhaps worry, over his
gigantic work, the Journey to Calvary chapel. That he was either absent
from Varallo, or at Varallo but unable to work, between the years 1586
and 1590, is certain, for, in the first place, there is no work on the
Sacro Monte that can possibly be given to him during these years, and in
the second, if he had been available, considering the brilliant success
of his Calvary chapel, the Massacre of the Innocents, which dates from
1586–1590, would surely have been entrusted to him, instead of to
Rossetti or Bargnola—whichever of these two is the rightful sculptor.
Nevertheless it is certain that after the end of 1589, to which date the
edition of Caccia appears by its preface to belong, Tabachetti reappeared
in full force, did one chapel of extreme beauty—the first Vision of St.
Joseph—and nothing more—unless indeed the Vecchietto be assigned to this
date. We know this, inasmuch as the First Vision of St. Joseph chapel is
not mentioned at all in either the 1586 or 1590 editions of Caccia, and
was evidently not yet even contemplated, whereas the Visit of Mary to
Elizabeth, over which he is supposed to have gone mad, is given in both
as completed.
Tabachetti was summoned to Crea in 1591, and was buying land and other
property in 1600, 1602, 1604, 1605, 1606, and 1608, at Serralunga, close
to Crea, where deeds which still exist say that he resided. There are
many families named Tabachetti still living in the immediate
neighbourhood of Serralunga, who are doubtless descended from the
sculptor. After 1608 nothing more is known of him. At Varallo, over and
above his work on the Sacro Monte, there is an exceedingly beautiful
Madonna by him, in the parish church of S. Gaudenzio, and one head of a
man with a ruff—a mere fragment—which Cav. Prof. Antonini showed me in
the Museum, and assured me was by Tabachetti. I know of no other work by
him except what remains at Crea, about which I will presently write more
fully. I am not, however, without hope that search about Liege and
Dinant may lead to the discovery of some work at present overlooked, and,
as I have said, will thankfully receive information.
I will conclude with a note taken from p. 47 of Part I. of Cav.
Alessandro Godio’s admirable “Cronaca di Crea.” {104}
The note runs:—
“The present writer found himself involved in a long dispute, through
having entered the lists against the Valsesian writers, who reckon
Tabachetti among the distinguished sons of the Val Sesia, and for
having said that he was born in Flanders. After a more successful
search in the above-named [Vercelli?] archive, under the letter B No.
6, over and above the deeds of 1600 and 1606, already referred to in
the ‘Vesillo della libertà,’ No. 39, Sept. 5, 1863, I found, under
numbers 308, 417, 498, 622, of the unarranged papers of Notary
Teodoro Caligaris, four more deeds dated 1602, 1604, 1605, 1608, in
which the Sculptor Gio. Battista Tabachetti is not only described as
a Fleming, but his birthplace is given as follows: “_Vendidit_,
_tradidit nobili Joanni Tabacheta filio quondam nobili Gulielmi de
Dinante de Liesa_ [_Liège_] _nunc incola Serralungæ_.” Since, then,
he was buying considerable property at Serralunga during the
above-named year, it is plain that he did not work continuously at
Varallo from 1590 to 1606, as contended by the Valsesian writers
quoted by An. Cav. Carlo Dionisotti, the distinguished author of the
Valle Sesia. Moreover, from the year 1590 and onward the chapels of
Crea were begun, and of these, by advice of Monsignor Tullio del
Carretto, Bishop of Casale, at the bidding of Michel Angelo da
Liverno, who was Vicar of Crea, Tabachetti designed not fifteen but
forty, and found himself at the head of the direction of the great
work that was then engaging the attention of the foremost Italian
artists of the day.”
GIOVANNI D’ENRICO.
For my account of Giovanni D’Enrico I turn to Signor Galloni’s “_Uomini e
fatti celebri di Valle Sesia_.” He was second of three brothers,
Melchiorre, Giovanni, and Antonio, commonly called Tanzio, who were born
at the German-speaking village of Alagna, that stands at the head of the
Val Sesia. Signor Galloni says that the elder brother, Melchiorre,
painted the frescoes in the Temptation chapel in 1594, and the Last
Judgment on the facciata of the parish church at Riva in 1597.
The house occupied by the family of D’Enrico was, as I gather from a note
communicated to Signor Galloni by Cav. Don Farinetti of Alagna, in the
fraction of Alagna called Giacomolo, where a few years ago a last
descendant of the family was still residing. The house is of wood, old
and black with smoke; on the wooden gallery or lobby that runs in front
of it, and above the low and narrow doorways, there is an inscription or
verse of the Bible, “_Allein Gott Ehere_,” dated 1609. The small oratory
hard by is said to have been also the property of the D’Enrico family,
and in the _ancona_ of the little altar there is a picture representing
the Virgin of not inconsiderable merit, with a beautiful gilded frame in
excellent preservation. On the background of this picture there is the
stemma of the D’Enrico family, and an inscription in Latin bearing the
names of John and Eva D’Enrico.
The exact dates of the births of the three brothers are unknown, but the
eldest and youngest were described in a certificate of good character,
dated February 11, 1600, as “_juvenes bonæ vocis_, _conditionis et
famæ_,” so that if we assume Melchiorre to have been born in 1575, {106}
Giovanni in 1580, and Antonio in 1585, we shall, in no case, be more than
five years or so in error. I own to being able to see little merit in
any of Melchiorre’s work, of which the reader will find a sample in the
frescoes behind the old Adam and Eve, which is given to face p. 121, but
it is believed that he for the most part painted the terra-cotta figures,
rather than backgrounds. Nor do I like the work of Tanzio—which may be
seen, perhaps, to the best advantage in the Herod chapel. Tanzio,
however, was a stronger man than Melchiorre. Giovanni was incomparably
the ablest of the three brothers, and it is to him alone that I will ask
the reader to devote attention.
Signor Galloni calls Giovanni D’Enrico a pupil of Tabachetti, probably
following Bordiga, but I have not seen the evidence on which this
generally received opinion is based; Tabachetti had finally left Varallo
by 1591, when Giovanni D’Enrico was little more than a child, and though
he may have been sent to work under Tabachetti at Crea, I have not come
across anything to show this was so. He was an architect as well as
sculptor, and is believed to have made the modification of Pellegrino
Tibaldi’s designs that was ultimately adopted for the Palazzo di Pilato,
Caiaphas, and Herod chapels. He was also architect of the Chiesa
Maggiore on the Sacro Monte, his design having been approved April 1,
1614. He is believed to have done a Madonna and child, a St. Rocco, and
a St. Sebastian in the parish church at Alagna; he also sent many figures
away, some of which may possibly be found in the disused chapels of
Graglia, if indeed these contain anything at all. He died at Montrigone
near Borgosesia in 1644, while superintending the work of his pupil and
collaborateur Giacomo Ferro, who, it is said, has placed his master’s
portrait near the bed of S. Anna in his chapel of the Birth of the Virgin
(?) at Montrigone. Others say that the figure in question does not
represent D’Enrico, and that his portrait is found in a niche in the
chapel itself, but Signor Galloni assures us that there is nothing but
tradition in favour of either view. Giacomo Ferro appears to have been
his only pupil and his only collaborateur. There can, I think, be little
doubt that the greater part of the work generally ascribed to D’Enrico is
really by Giacomo Ferro, and the uncertainty as to what figures are
actually by D’Enrico himself makes it very difficult to form a just
opinion about his genius. Some chapels are given to him, as for example
the Flagellation and Crowning with Thorns, which are mentioned as
completed in the 1586 edition of Caccia, when D’Enrico was at most a
child. True, he may have remodelled these chapels, but I have not yet
met with evidence that he actually did so, though I dare say such
evidence may exist without my knowing it.
In those in which he was undoubtedly assisted by Giacomo Ferro, as for
example the Caiaphas, Herod, four Pilate, and Nailing to the Cross
chapels, with possibly the Ecce Homo, perhaps the safest rule will be to
give the few really excellent figures that are to be found in each of
them to D’Enrico himself and to ascribe all the inferior work, of which
unfortunately there is too much, to Giacomo Ferro. That the assistance
rendered by him was on a very large scale may be gathered from the fact
that there was a deed drawn up between him and his master whereby he was
to receive half the money that was paid to D’Enrico,—a quasi partnership
indeed seems to have existed between the two sculptors. This deed is
referred to by Signor Galloni on page 178 of his “Uomini e Fatti,” and on
the same page he gives us an extract from a lawsuit between Giacomo Ferro
and the town of Varallo which gives us a curious insight into the manner
in which the artists of the Sacro Monte were paid. From a
_procès-verbal_ in connection with this suit Signor Galloni quotes the
following extract:—
“And further the said deputies allege that in the accounts rendered
by the said master Giovanni D’Enrico in respect of the pontifical
thrones in the Caiaphas and Nailing to the Cross chapels, these have
been valued at the rate of four statues for each several throne and
horse, whereas it appears from old accounts rendered by other
statuaries that they have been hitherto charged only at the rate of
three statues for each throne and horse. Wherefore the said deputies
claim to deduct the overcharge of one statue for each horse and
throne, which being thirteen at the rate of 10 and a quarter scudi
for each figure, would give a total deduction of 132 and a half
scudi.”
It appears in another part of the same _procès-verbal_ that Giovanni
D’Enrico had been paid in 1640 the sum of 4240 lire and 8 soldi.
Giacomo Ferro and his brother Antonio were Giovanni D’Enrico’s heirs,
from which it would appear that he either died unmarried, or left no
children.
To say that D’Enrico will compare with Tabachetti would be an obvious
exaggeration, and, indeed, there are only very few figures on the Sacro
Monte about which we can feel certain that they are by him at all. The
Caiaphas, Herod, Laughing Boys in the Herod chapel, and the Man with the
Two Children in the Ecce Homo chapel cannot, I think, be given to any one
else, but at this moment I do not call to mind more than some fourteen or
fifteen figures out of the three hundred or so that are ascribed to him,
about which we can be as certain that they are by D’Enrico as we can be
that most of those given to Tabachetti and Gaudenzio are actually by
them. For not only have we to reckon with Giacomo Ferro, who, if he had
half the pay, we may be sure did not less than half the figures, and
probably very much more, but we must reckon with the figures taken from
older chapels when reconstructed, as in D’Enrico’s time was the case with
several. What became of the figures in Gaudenzio Ferrari’s original
Journey to Calvary chapel, and in other works by him that were cancelled
when the Palazzo di Pilato chapel was built? It is not likely they were
destroyed if by any hook or crook they could be made to do duty in some
other shape; more probably they are most of them still existing up and
down D’Enrico’s various chapels, but so doctored, if the expression may
be pardoned, that Gaudenzio himself would not know them. In the Ecce
Homo chapel we can say with confidence that the extreme figure to the
left is by Gaudenzio, and has been taken from some one of his chapels now
lost; we are able to detect this by an accident, but there are other
figures in the same chapel and not a few elsewhere, about which we can
have no confidence that they have not been taken from some earlier chapel
either by Gaudenzio or some one else. What, then, with these figures,
and what with Giacomo Ferro, it is not easy to say what D’Enrico did or
did not do.
The intercalated figures have been fitted into the work with admirable
skill, nevertheless they do not form part of design, and make it want the
unity observable in the work of Tabachetti and Gaudenzio. They have been
lugged into the composition, and no matter how skilful their
introduction, are soon felt, as in the case of the Vecchietto, to have no
business where they are. Moreover, D’Enrico shows his figures off, which
Tabachetti never does: the result is that in his chapels each figure has
its attention a good deal drawn to the desirableness of neither being
itself lost sight of, nor impeding the view of its neighbours. This is
fatal, and though Giacomo Ferro is doubtless more practically guilty in
the matter than D’Enrico, yet D’Enrico is the responsible author of the
work, and must bear the blame accordingly. Standing once with Signor
Pizetta of Varallo, before D’Enrico’s great Nailing of Christ to the
Cross chapel, I asked him casually how he thought it compared with
Tabachetti’s Journey to Calvary. He replied “_Questo non sacrifica
niente_,” meaning that Tabachetti thought of the action much and but
little of whether or no the actors got in each other’s way, whereas
D’Enrico was mainly bent on making his figures steer clear of one
another. Thus his chapels want the concert and unity of action that give
such life to Tabachetti’s. Nevertheless, in spite of the defect above
referred to, it is impossible to deny that the sculptor of the Herod and
Caiaphas figures was a man of very rare ability, nor can the general
verdict which assigns him the third place among the workers on the Sacro
Monte be reasonably disputed. But this third place must be given rather
in respect of quantity than quality, for in dramatic power and
highly-wrought tragic action he is inferior to the sculptor, whoever he
may be, of the Massacre of the Innocents chapel, to which I will return
when I come to the chapel in question.
I may say in passing that Cicognara, Lübke, and Perkins have all omitted
to mention Giovanni D’Enrico as a sculptor, though Nagler mentions his
two brothers as painters. Nagler gives the two brothers D’Enrico as all
bearing the patronymic Tanzio, which I am told is in reality only a
corruption of the Christian name of the third brother. Zani mentions
Giovanni D’Enrico as well as his two brothers, and calls him “_celebre_,”
but he calls all the three brothers “Tanzii, Tanzi, Tanzio, or Tanzo.”