On first seeing Giovanni D’Enrico’s Nailing to the Cross we are tempted to think it even finer than the Journey to Calvary. The work is larger, comprising some twenty or so more terra-cotta figures—making about sixty in all—and ten horses, all rather larger than life, but the first impression soon wears off and the arrangement is then felt to be artificial as compared with Tabachetti’s. Tabachetti made a great point when, instead of keeping his floor flat or sloping it evenly up to any one side, he threw his stage up towards one corner, which is much higher than any other. The unevenness, and irregular unevenness, of the ground is of the greatest assistance to him, by giving him variety of plane, and hence a way of escaping monotony without further effort on his part. If D’Enrico had taken his ground down from the corner up to which Tabachetti had led it, he would have secured both continuity with Tabachetti’s scene, and an irregularly uneven surface, without repeating his predecessor’s arrangement. True, the procession was supposed to be at the top of Mount Calvary, but that is a detail. As it is, D’Enrico has copied Tabachetti in making his ground slope, but, unless my memory fails me, has made it slope evenly along the whole width of the chapel, from the foreground to the wall at the back—with the exception of a small mound in the middle background. The horses are arranged all round the walls, and the soldiers are all alongside of the horses, and every figure is so placed as to show itself to the greatest advantage. This perhaps is exaggeration, but there is enough truth in it to help the reader who is unfamiliar with this class of work to apprehend Tabachetti’s superiority more readily than he might otherwise do in the short time that tourists commonly have at their disposal. The general impression left upon myself and Jones was that it contains much more of Giacomo Ferro than of D’Enrico; but in spite of this it is impossible to deny that the work is important and on the whole impressive. [Picture: Plate XVI. Gaudenzio Ferrari’s “Crucifixion.” General View, looking towards the Bad Thief] CHAPEL NO. 38. THE CRUCIFIXION.