APPENDIX, 5 445

of returning to their former homes, built their Duomo there. It is a disputed point among Venetian antiquarians, whether the present church be that which was built in the seventh century, partially restored in 1008, or whether the words of Sagornino,¹ “ecclesiam jam vetustate consumptam recreare,” justify them in assuming an entire rebuilding of the fabric. I quite agree with the Marchese Selvatico in believing the present church to be the earlier building, variously strengthened, refitted, and modified by subsequent care; but, in all its main features, preserving its original aspect, except, perhaps, in the case of the pulpit and chancel screen, which, if the Chevalier Bunsen’s conclusions respecting early pulpits in the Roman basilicas be correct (see the next article of this Appendix), may possibly have been placed in their present position in the tenth century, and the fragmentary character of the workmanship of the latter, noticed in [ch. ii.] §§ 10 and 11, would in that case have been the result of innovation, rather than of haste. The question, however, whether they are of the seventh or eleventh century, does not in the least affect our conclusions, drawn from the design of these portions of the church, respecting pulpits in general.

5. [P. 30] MODERN PULPITS

There is no character of an ordinary modern English church which appears to me more to be regretted than the peculiar pompousness of the furniture of the pulpits, contrasted, as it generally is, with great meagreness and absence of colour in the other portions of the church; a pompousness, besides, altogether without grace or meaning, and dependent merely on certain applications of upholstery; which, curiously enough, are always in worse taste than those even of our drawing-rooms. Nor do I understand how our congregations can endure the aspect of the wooden sounding-board, attached only by one point of its circumference to an upright pillar behind the preacher; and looking as if the weight of its enormous leverage must infallibly, before the sermon is concluded, tear it from its support, and bring it down upon the preacher’s head. These errors in taste and feeling will, however, I believe, be gradually amended as more Gothic churches are built;* but the question of the position of the pulpit presents a more disputable ground of discussion. I can perfectly sympathise with the feeling of those who wish the eastern extremity of the church to form a kind of holy place for the communion table; nor have I often received a more painful impression than on seeing the preacher at the Scotch Church in George Street, Portman Square, taking possession of a perfect apse; and occupying therein, during the course of the service, very nearly the position which the figure of Christ does in that of the Cathedral of Pisa. But I nevertheless believe that the Scotch congregation are perfectly right, and have restored the real arrangement of the primitive churches. The Chevalier Bunsen informed me very lately, that, in all the early basilicas he has examined,² the lateral pulpits are of more recent date than the rest of the building; that he knows of none placed in the position which they now occupy, both in the

* They have been so. The pulpits are now unexceptionable. The difficulty is only to make any use of them. [Note added in Ruskin’s copy for revision.]

¹ [See above, p. 338.]

² [See above, p. 22 n.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]