Chapel No. 9. Joseph Warned to Fly.

This chapel is described as completed in both the 1586 and 1590 editions of Caccia.  The figures are again given to Fermo Stella by Bordiga, but not by either Fassola or Torrotti.  I am again unable to think that Bordiga is right.  There is again, also, a sub-Flemish feeling which is difficult to account for.  The angel is a fine figure, and the heads of the Virgin and Child are also excellent, but the folds of the drapery are not so good.  If there were any evidence, which there is not, to show that these figures were early works of Tabachetti, and that the sleeping St. Joseph is a first attempt at the figure which he succeeded later so admirably in rendering, I should be inclined to accept it; as it is, I can form no opinion about the authorship of the terra-cotta work.  The fresco background is worthless.