It would thus appear that the Sacro Monte was founded four years earlier than the received date. The formal deed of conveyance of the site on the mountain from the town to Bernardino Caimi was not signed till the 14th of April 1493; but the work had been already commenced, as is shown by the inscription still remaining over the reproduction of the Holy Sepulchre, which is dated the 17th of October 1491. Probably the work was contemplated in 1486, and interrupted by B. Caimi’s return to Jerusalem in 1487, not to be actively resumed till 1490. “The first stone,” says Mr. King, “was laid by Scarognini, a Milanese ‘magnifico,’ who cordially entered into the scheme; and at his expense the Holy Sepulchre was completed, and a hospice attached, where the founder and a number of Franciscan brothers came to reside in 1493. Caimo had planned a vast extension of this commencement, but died within three years, leaving his designs to be carried out by his successors.” . . . . . “Each oratory contains a group—in some very numerous—of figures modelled in terra-cotta the size of life or larger; many of them of great merit as works of art, others very inferior and mere rubbish. The figures are coloured and occasionally draped with appropriate clothing, the resemblance to life being heightened by the addition of human hair”—[which, by the way, is always horse-hair]—“and the effect is often very startling. Each chapel represents a different ‘mystery,’ and, beside the modelled figures, the walls are decorated with frescoes. The front of each is open to the air, all but a wire grating, through apertures in which the subject may be perfectly seen in the position intended by the designer” (pp. 510–512). Mr. King says, correctly, that Gaudenzio’s earliest remaining work on the Sacro Monte is the Chapel of the Pietà, that originally contained the figures of Christ bearing the cross, but from which the modelled figures were removed, others being substituted that had no connection with the background. I do not know, however, that Christ was actually carrying the cross in the chapel as it originally stood. The words of the 1587 edition of Caccia (?) stand, “Come il N.S. fu spogliato de suoi panni, e condotto sopra il Monte Calvario, ch’ e fatto di bellissimo e ben inteso relievo.”