E-text prepared by Marius Masi, Juliet Sutherland, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)
Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 30754-h.htm or 30754-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30754/pg30754-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/30754/30754-h.zip)
Volumes II and III are available in the Project Gutenberg
Library:
Volume II--see https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/30755
Volume III--see https://www.gutenberg.org/etext/30756
Volume III contains the index for all three volumes. The
index in the html version of Volume III has links to the
the other two volumes.
Transcriber's note:
A few typographical errors have been corrected. They are
listed at the end of the text.
A number following a letter, such as d3, was printed as a
subscript in the original.
The Complete Works of John Ruskin
Volume VII
STONES OF VENICE
VOLUME I
[Illustration: VENICE.
FROM A PAINTING BY
J. M. W. TURNER.]
Library Edition
The Complete Works of John Ruskin
STONES OF VENICE
VOLUMES I-II
National Library Association
New York Chicago
THE
STONES OF VENICE
VOLUME I.
THE FOUNDATIONS
PREFACE.
In the course of arranging the following essay, I put many things aside
in my thoughts to be said in the Preface, things which I shall now put
aside altogether, and pass by; for when a book has been advertised a
year and a half, it seems best to present it with as little preface as
possible.
Thus much, however, it is necessary for the reader to know, that, when I
planned the work, I had materials by me, collected at different times of
sojourn in Venice during the last seventeen years, which it seemed to me
might be arranged with little difficulty, and which I believe to be of
value as illustrating the history of Southern Gothic. Requiring,
however, some clearer assurance respecting certain points of chronology,
I went to Venice finally in the autumn of 1849, not doubting but that
the dates of the principal edifices of the ancient city were either
ascertained, or ascertainable without extraordinary research. To my
consternation, I found that the Venetian antiquaries were not agreed
within a century as to the date of the building of the façades of the
Ducal Palace, and that nothing was known of any other civil edifice of
the early city, except that at some time or other it had been fitted up
for somebody's reception, and been thereupon fresh painted. Every date
in question was determinable only by internal evidence, and it became
necessary for me to examine not only every one of the older palaces,
stone by stone, but every fragment throughout the city which afforded
any clue to the formation of its styles. This I did as well as I could,
and I believe there will be found, in the following pages, the only
existing account of the details of early Venetian architecture on which
dependence can be placed, as far as it goes. I do not care to point out
the deficiencies of other works on this subject; the reader will find,
if he examines them, either that the buildings to which I shall
specially direct his attention have been hitherto undescribed, or else
that there are great discrepancies between previous descriptions and
mine: for which discrepancies I may be permitted to give this single and
sufficient reason, that my account of every building is based on
personal examination and measurement of it, and that my taking the pains
so to examine what I had to describe, was a subject of grave surprise to
my Italian friends. The work of the Marchese Selvatico is, however, to
be distinguished with respect; it is clear in arrangement, and full of
useful, though vague, information; and I have found cause to adopt, in
great measure, its views of the chronological succession of the edifices
of Venice. I shall have cause hereafter to quarrel with it on other
grounds, but not without expression of gratitude for the assistance it
has given me. Fontana's "Fabbriche di Venezia" is also historically
valuable, but does not attempt to give architectural detail. Cicognara,
as is now generally known, is so inaccurate as hardly to deserve
mention.
Indeed, it is not easy to be accurate in an account of anything, however
simple. Zoologists often disagree in their descriptions of the curve of
a shell, or the plumage of a bird, though they may lay their specimen on
the table, and examine it at their leisure; how much greater becomes the
likelihood of error in the description of things which must be in many
parts observed from a distance, or under unfavorable circumstances of
light and shade; and of which many of the distinctive features have been
worn away by time. I believe few people have any idea of the cost of
truth in these things; of the expenditure of time necessary to make sure
of the simplest facts, and of the strange way in which separate
observations will sometimes falsify each other, incapable of
reconcilement, owing to some imperceptible inadvertency. I am ashamed of
the number of times in which I have had to say, in the following pages,
"I am not sure," and I claim for them no authority, as if they were
thoroughly sifted from error, even in what they more confidently state.
Only, as far as my time, and strength, and mind served me, I have
endeavored down to the smallest matters, to ascertain and speak the
truth.
Nor was the subject without many and most discouraging difficulties,
peculiar to itself. As far as my inquiries have extended, there is not a
building in Venice, raised prior to the sixteenth century, which has not
sustained essential change in one or more of its most important
features. By far the greater number present examples of three or four
different styles, it may be successive, it may be accidentally
associated; and, in many instances, the restorations or additions have
gradually replaced the entire structure of the ancient fabric, of which
nothing but the name remains, together with a kind of identity,
exhibited in the anomalous association of the modernized portions: the
Will of the old building asserted through them all, stubbornly, though
vainly, expressive; superseded by codicils, and falsified by
misinterpretation; yet animating what would otherwise be a mere group of
fantastic masque, as embarrassing to the antiquary, as to the
mineralogist, the epigene crystal, formed by materials of one substance
modelled on the perished crystals of another. The church of St. Mark's
itself, harmonious as its structure may at first sight appear, is an
epitome of the changes of Venetian architecture from the tenth to the
nineteenth century. Its crypt, and the line of low arches which support
the screen, are apparently the earliest portions; the lower stories of
the main fabric are of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, with later
Gothic interpolations; the pinnacles are of the earliest fully developed
Venetian Gothic (fourteenth century); but one of them, that on the
projection at the eastern extremity of the Piazzetta de Leoni, is of far
finer, and probably earlier workmanship than all the rest. The southern
range of pinnacles is again inferior to the northern and western, and
visibly of later date. Then the screen, which most writers have
described as part of the original fabric, bears its date inscribed on
its architrave, 1394, and with it are associated a multitude of small
screens, balustrades, decorations of the interior building, and probably
the rose window of the south transept. Then come the interpolated
traceries of the front and sides; then the crocketings of the upper
arches, extravagances of the incipient Renaissance: and, finally, the
figures which carry the waterspouts on the north side--utterly barbarous
seventeenth or eighteenth century work--connect the whole with the
plastered restorations of the year 1844 and 1845. Most of the palaces in
Venice have sustained interpolations hardly less numerous; and those of
the Ducal Palace are so intricate, that a year's labor would probably be
insufficient altogether to disentangle and define them. I therefore gave
up all thoughts of obtaining a perfectly clear chronological view of the
early architecture; but the dates necessary to the main purposes of the
book the reader will find well established; and of the evidence brought
forward for those of less importance, he is himself to judge. Doubtful
estimates are never made grounds of argument; and the accuracy of the
account of the buildings themselves, for which alone I pledge myself,
is of course entirely independent of them.
In like manner, as the statements briefly made in the chapters on
construction involve questions so difficult and so general, that I
cannot hope that every expression referring to them will be found free
from error: and as the conclusions to which I have endeavored to lead
the reader are thrown into a form the validity of which depends on that
of each successive step, it might be argued, if fallacy or weakness
could be detected in one of them, that all the subsequent reasonings
were valueless. The reader may be assured, however, that it is not so;
the method of proof used in the following essay being only one out of
many which were in my choice, adopted because it seemed to me the
shortest and simplest, not as being the strongest. In many cases, the
conclusions are those which men of quick feeling would arrive at
instinctively; and I then sought to discover the reasons of what so
strongly recommended itself as truth. Though these reasons could every
one of them, from the beginning to the end of the book, be proved
insufficient, the truth of its conclusions would remain the same. I
should only regret that I had dishonored them by an ill-grounded
defence; and endeavor to repair my error by a better one.
I have not, however, written carelessly; nor should I in any wise have
expressed doubt of the security of the following argument, but that it
is physically impossible for me, being engaged quite as much with
mountains, and clouds, and trees, and criticism of painting, as with
architecture, to verify, as I should desire, the expression of every
sentence bearing upon empirical and technical matters. Life is not long
enough; nor does a day pass by without causing me to feel more bitterly
the impossibility of carrying out to the extent which I should desire,
the separate studies which general criticism continually forces me to
undertake. I can only assure the reader, that he will find the certainty
of every statement I permit myself to make, increase with its
importance; and that, for the security of the final conclusions of the
following essay, as well as for the resolute veracity of its account of
whatever facts have come under my own immediate cognizance, I will
pledge myself to the uttermost.
It was necessary, to the accomplishment of the purpose of the work (of
which account is given in the First Chapter), that I should establish
some canons of judgment, which the general reader should thoroughly
understand, and, if it pleased him, accept, before we took cognizance,
together, of any architecture whatsoever. It has taken me more time and
trouble to do this than I expected; but, if I have succeeded, the thing
done will be of use for many other purposes than that to which it is now
put. The establishment of these canons, which I have called "the
Foundations," and some account of the connection of Venetian
architecture with that of the rest of Europe, have filled the present
volume. The second will, I hope, contain all I have to say about Venice
itself.
It was of course inexpedient to reduce drawings of crowded details to
the size of an octavo volume,--I do not say impossible, but inexpedient;
requiring infinite pains on the part of the engraver, with no result
except farther pains to the beholder. And as, on the other hand, folio
books are not easy reading, I determined to separate the text and the
unreducible plates. I have given, with the principal text, all the
illustrations absolutely necessary to the understanding of it, and, in
the detached work, such additional text as has special reference to the
larger illustrations.
A considerable number of these larger plates were at first intended to
be executed in tinted lithography; but, finding the result
unsatisfactory, I have determined to prepare the principal subjects for
mezzotinting,--a change of method requiring two new drawings to be made
of every subject; one a carefully penned outline for the etcher, and
then a finished drawing upon the etching. This work does not proceed
fast, while I am also occupied with the completion of the text; but the
numbers of it will appear as fast as I can prepare them.
For the illustrations of the body of the work itself, I have used any
kind of engraving which seemed suited to the subjects--line and
mezzotint, on steel, with mixed lithographs and woodcuts, at
considerable loss of uniformity in the appearance of the volume, but, I
hope, with advantage, in rendering the character of the architecture it
describes. And both in the plates and the text I have aimed chiefly at
clear intelligibility; that any one, however little versed in the
subject, might be able to take up the book, and understand what it meant
forthwith. I have utterly failed of my purpose, if I have not made all
the essential parts of the essay intelligible to the least learned, and
easy to the most desultory readers, who are likely to take interest in
the matter at all. There are few passages which even require so much as
an acquaintance with the elements of Euclid, and these may be missed,
without harm to the sense of the rest, by every reader to whom they may
appear mysterious; and the architectural terms necessarily employed
(which are very few) are explained as they occur, or in a note; so that,
though I may often be found trite or tedious, I trust that I shall not
be obscure. I am especially anxious to rid this essay of ambiguity,
because I want to gain the ear of all kinds of persons. Every man has,
at some time of his life, personal interest in architecture. He has
influence on the design of some public building; or he has to buy, or
build, or alter his own house. It signifies less whether the knowledge
of other arts be general or not; men may live without buying pictures or
statues: but, in architecture, all must in some way commit themselves;
they _must_ do mischief, and waste their money, if they do not know how
to turn it to account. Churches, and shops, and warehouses, and
cottages, and small row, and place, and terrace houses, must be built,
and lived in, however joyless or inconvenient. And it is assuredly
intended that all of us should have knowledge, and act upon our
knowledge, in matters with which we are daily concerned, and not to be
left to the caprice of architects or mercy of contractors. There is not,
indeed, anything in the following essay bearing on the special forms and
needs of modern buildings; but the principles it inculcates are
universal; and they are illustrated from the remains of a city which
should surely be interesting to the men of London, as affording the
richest existing examples of architecture raised by a mercantile
community, for civil uses, and domestic magnificence.
DENMARK HILL, _February_, 1851.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Preface, iii
CHAPTER I.
The Quarry, 1