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Scoriandrus Directory 09
Page 02
There is reason to believe that after his reconciliation with the king of England Innocent III had all the letters in which he had threatened John with the severest penalties collected so far as possible and destroyed.[76] It is uncertain, however, whether before the end of 1212 he had gone so far as to depose the king and to absolve his subjects from their allegiance, though this is asserted by English chroniclers. But there is no good ground to doubt that in January, 1213, he took this step, and authorized the king of France to invade England and deprive John of his kingdom. Philip needed no urging. He collected a numerous fleet, we are told, of 1500 vessels, and a large army. In the first week of April he held a great council at Soissons, and the enterprise was determined on by the barons and bishops of France. At the same council arrangements were made to define the legal relations to France of the kingdom to be conquered, The king of England was to be Philip's son, Louis, who could advance some show of right through his wife, John's niece, Blanche of Castile but during his father's lifetime he was to make no pretension to any part of France, a provision which would leave the duchy of Aquitaine in Philip's hands, as Normandy was. Louis was to require an oath of his new subjects that they would undertake nothing against France, and he was to leave to his father the disposal of the person of John and of his private possessions. Of the relationship between the two countries when Louis should succeed to the crown of France, nothing was said. Preparations were so far advanced that it was expected that the army would embark before the end of May.
The Saas chronicler, indeed, avers that the chapels were not built till 1709--a statement apparently corroborated by a date now visible on one chapel; but we must remember that the chronicler did not write until a century or so later than 1709, and though, indeed, his statement may have been taken from the lost earlier manuscript of 1738, we know nothing about this either one way or the other. The writer may have gone by the still existing 1709 on the Ascension chapel, whereas this date may in fact have referred to a restoration, and not to an original construction. There is nothing, as I have said, in the choice of the chapel on which the date appears, to suggest that it was intended to govern the others. I have explained that the work is isolated and exotic. It is by one in whom Flemish and Italian influences are alike equally predominant; by one who was saturated with Tabachetti's Varallo work, and who can improve upon it, but over whom the other Varallo sculptors have no power. The style of the work is of the sixteenth and not of the eighteenth century--with a few obvious exceptions that suit the year 1709 exceedingly well. Against such considerations as these, a statement made at the beginning of this century referring to a century earlier, and a promiscuous date upon one chapel, can carry but little weight. I shall assume, therefore, henceforward, that we have here groups designed in a plastic material by Tabachetti, and reproduced in wood by the best local wood-sculptor available, with the exception of a few figures cut by the artist himself.
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