lodged open--those at least that are on the
ground-floor, but there are three storeys. The chapel, which was
dedicated in the year 1600, juts out into the court upon the north-east
side. On the north-west and south-west sides are entrances through which
one may pass to the open country. The grass at the time of our visit was
for the most part covered with sheets spread out to dry. They looked
very nice, and, dried on such grass, and in such an air, they must be
delicious to sleep on. There is, indeed, rather an appearance as though
it were a perpetual washing-day at Oropa, but this is not to be wondered
at considering the numbers of comers and goers; besides, people in Italy
do not make so much fuss about trifles as we do. If they want to wash
their sheets and dry them, they do not send them to Ealing, but lay them
out in the first place that comes handy, and nobody's bones are broken.

On the east side of the main block of buildings there is a grassy slope
adorned with chapels that contain figures illustrating scenes in the
history of the Virgin. These figures are of terra-cotta, for the most
part life-size, and painted up to nature. In some cases, if I remember
rightly, they have hemp or flax for hair, as at Varallo, and throughout
realism is aimed at as far as possible, not only in the figures, but in
the accessories. We have very little of the same kind in England. In
the Tower of London there is an effigy of Queen Elizabeth going to the
city to give thanks for the defeat of the Spanish Armada. This looks as
if it might have been the work of some one of the Valsesian sculptors.
There are also the figures that strike the quarters of Sir John Bennett's
city clock in Cheapside. The automatic movements of these last-named
figures would have struck the originators of the Varallo chapels with
envy. They aimed at realism so closely that they would assuredly have
had recourse to clockwork in some one or two of their chapels; I cannot
doubt, for example, that they would have eagerly welcomed the idea of
making the cock crow to Peter by a cuckoo-clock arrangement, if it had
been presented to them. This opens up the whole question of realism
_versus_ conventionalism in art--a subject much too large to be treated
here.

As I have said, the founders of these Italian chapels aimed at realism.
Each chapel was intended as an illustration, and the desire was to bring
the whole scene more vividly before the faithful by