I observe
that the kind of lapelled tunic which Tabachetti, and only
Tabachetti, adopts at Varallo, is adopted for the centurion in this
chapel, and indeed throughout the Saas chapels this particular form
of tunic is the most usual for a Roman soldier. The work is still a
very striking one, notwithstanding its translation into wood and the
decay into which it has been allowed to fall; nor can it fail to
impress the visitor who is familiar with this class of art as coming
from a man of extraordinary dramatic power and command over the
almost impossible art of composing many figures together effectively
in all-round sculpture. Whether all the figures are even now as
Tabachetti left them I cannot determine, but Mr. Selwyn has restored
Simon the Cyrenian to the position in which he obviously ought to
stand, and between us we have got the chapel into something more
like order.
10. The Crucifixion. This subject was treated at Varallo not by
Tabachetti but by Gaudenzio Ferrari. It confirms therefore my
opinion as to the designer of the Saas chapels to find in them no
trace of the Varallo Crucifixion, while the kind of tunic which at
Varallo is only found in chapels wherein Tabachetti worked again
appears here. The work is in a deplorable state of decay. Mr.
Selwyn has greatly improved the arrangement of the figures, but even
now they are not, I imagine, quite as Tabachetti left them.
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