II. TORCELLO 19

the multitude of its people, seeking, like Israel of old, a refuge from the sword in the paths of the sea.¹

The cattle are feeding and resting upon the site of the city that they left;² the mower’s scythe swept this day at dawn over the chief street of the city that they built, and the swathes of soft grass are now sending up their scent into the night air, the only incense that fills the temple of their ancient worship. Let us go down into that little space of meadow land.

§ 3. The inlet which runs nearest to the base of the campanile is not that by which Torcello is commonly approached. Another, somewhat broader, and overhung by alder copse, winds out of the main channel of the lagoon up to the very edge of the little meadow which was once the Piazza of the city, and there, stayed by a few grey stones which present some semblance of a quay, forms its boundary at one extremity. Hardly larger than an ordinary English farmyard, and roughly enclosed on each side by broken palings and hedges of honeysuckle and briar, the narrow field retires

guided, the people of Altino moved to Torcello, leaving their home to be burned by the Lombards when they found it empty. The fugitives called their new abode Torcello, in memory of many-towered Altino, which they had left behind. Their first care was to build a church to the honour of Mary, the Virgin. It was beautiful in form and very fair; its pavement was made in circles of precious marbles.” (H. F. Brown’s Venice, p. 10, where further extracts from the old chronicles relating to Torcello will be found).]

¹ [A Biblical phrase: see Psalms viii. 8.]

² [Yet above, § 1, it is stated that “there are no living creatures near the buildings.” Ruskin’s letters to his father show that the description is the reminiscence of the winter and spring aspects of the place respectively:-

“[May 24, 1852.]-I have ... been again to Torcello; it is so beautiful now; there never was a place on which season made so much difference. The fields and vineyards in winter are lost among the marshy land, all trampled into mud; but now, they are separated from the canals which encircle the little island by hedges of briar and honeysuckle and hawthorn, and the vineyards are in young leaf; and in the little piazza of the ancient city, round its flagstaff, they are mowing their hay, and it lies in fragrant heaps about the bases of the pillars of the cathedral, and all the peasantry look happy and even healthy, the spring sunshine making their faces ruddy: they sing everywhere as they go. I am very glad I have seen it at this season; it will at least give one pleasant picture for the opening of my book. I daresay I shall go there once more. Leaving here at three o’clock we get there at ˝ past four, can see the long sunshine fading over the narrow field, and gilding vine leaves of the old shafts, and be back in Venice by twilight, much to enjoy one’s tea after the long row.”]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]