The spurs worn by the young men in the April and
May frescoes (pp. 211, 212) are about the date 1460. Their
facsimiles can be seen in the Tower of London with this date
assigned to them. The frescoes, therefore, can hardly have been
painted before this time; but they were probably painted later, for
in the St. Christopher there is a distinct hint at anatomy; enough
to show that the study of anatomy introduced by Leonardo da Vinci
was beginning to be talked about as more or less the correct thing.
This would hardly be the case before 1480, as Leonardo was not born
till 1452. By February 1481 the frescoes were already painted;
this is plain because the inscription - which, I think, may be taken
as a record made at the time that fealty was done - is scratched
over them. Peter De Sax, if he was selling his property, is not
likely to have had the frescoes painted just before he was going
away; I think it most likely, therefore, that they were painted in
1480, when the valley of Mesocco passed from the hands of the De
Sax family to those of the Triulci.
Underneath the inscription about the doing fealty there is
scratched in another hand, and very likely years after the event it
commemorates - "1548 fu liberata la Vallata." This date is
contradicted (and, I believe, corrected) by another inscription
hard by, also in another hand, which says -
"1549. La valle di Misocho compro la liberti da casa Triulcia per
2400 scuti."
This inscription is signed thus:-
[In the book there is a picture of four symbols]
Carlo a Marca had written his name along with three others in 1606
on another part of the frescoes. Here are the signatures:-
[Again, some symbols]
Two of these signatures belong to members of the Triulci family, as
appears by the trident, which translates the name. The T in each
case is doubtless for "Triulci." Four years earlier still, Carlo a
Marca had written his name, with that of his wife or fiancee, on
the fresco of St. Christopher on the facciata of the church, for we
found there -
1602 { Carlo a Marca.
{ Margherita dei Paglioni.
There is one other place where his name appears, or rather a part
of it, for the inscription is half hidden by a gallery, erected
probably in the last century.
The a Marca family still flourish in Mesocco. The curato is an a
Marca, so is the postmaster. On the walls of a house near the
convent there is an inscription to the effect that it was given by
his fellow-townsmen to a member of the a Marca family, and the best
work on the history of the valley is the work of Giovanni Antonio
Marca from which I have already quoted.
