and Vicar of the Convent of the Minorites in Milan, and also in
connection with that of Varallo, he was specially commissioned by
Pope Sixtus IV. to visit the Sepulchre and other holy places in
Palestine, and while there took the opportunity of making copies and
drawings, with the intention of erecting a facsimile of them in his
native country. On his return to Italy in 1491, after examining all
the likely sites within reasonable distance of Milan, he found the
conical hills of the Val Sesia the best adapted for his design, and
fixed upon Varallo as the spot; being probably specially attracted to
it from the fact of the convent and church of Sta. Maria delle
Grazie, already described, having been conveyed through him to the
'Minori Osservanti,' as appears from a brief of Innocent VIII., dated
December 21, 1486."


Mr. King does not give the source from which he derived his knowledge
of the existence of this act, and I have not come across a notice of
it elsewhere, except a brief one in Signor Galloni's work (p. 71),
and a reference to it in the conveyance of April 14, 1493. But
Signor Arienta of Varallo, whose industry in collecting materials for
a history of the Sacro Monte cannot be surpassed, showed me a
transcript from an old plan of the church of S. Maria delle Grazie,
in which the inscription on Bernardino Caimi's grave was given--an
inscription which (so at least I understood Signor Arienta to say) is
now covered by an altar which had been erected on the site of the
grave. The inscription ran:-

"Hic quiescunt ossa B. Bernardini Caimis Mediolan. S. Montis Varalli
Fundatoris An. 1486. Pontif. Dipl sub die 21 Xbris. Mortuus est
autem in hoc coenobio An. Vulg. AErae 1499."