The first chapel
with which we need concern ourselves is numbered 4, and shows the
Conception of the Virgin Mary. It represents St. Anne as kneeling
before a terrific dragon or, as the Italians call it, "insect,"
about the size of a Crystal Palace pleiosaur. This "insect" is
supposed to have just had its head badly crushed by St. Anne, who
seems to be begging its pardon. The text "Ipsa conteret caput tuum"
is written outside the chapel. The figures have no artistic
interest. As regards dragons being called insects, the reader may
perhaps remember that the island of S. Giulio, in the Lago d'Orta,
was infested with insetti, which S. Giulio destroyed, and which
appear, in a fresco underneath the church on the island, to have
been monstrous and ferocious dragons; but I cannot remember whether
their bodies are divided into three sections, and whether or no they
have exactly six legs--without which, I am told, they cannot be true
insects.
The fifth chapel represents the Birth of the Virgin.
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