APPENDIX,7, 8 447

7. [P. 66] EARLY VENETIAN DRESS

Sansovino’s account of the changes in the dress of the Venetians is brief, masterly, and full of interest; one or two passages are deserving of careful notice, especially the introductory sentence. “For the Venetians from their first origin, having made it their aim to be peaceful and religious, and to keep on an equality with one another, that equality might induce stability and concord (as disparity produces confusion and ruin), made their dress a matter of conscience,... and our ancestors, observant lovers of religion, upon which all their acts were founded, and desiring that their young men should direct themselves to virtue, the true soul of all human action, and above all to peace, invented a dress conformable to their gravity, such, that in clothing themselves with it, they might clothe themselves also with modesty and honour. And because their mind was bent upon giving no offence to any one, and living quietly as far as might be permitted them, it seemed good to them to show to every one, even by external signs, this their endeavour, by wearing a long dress, which was in nowise convenient for persons of a quick temperament, or of eager and fierce spirits.”

Respecting the colour of the women’s dress, it is noticeable that blue is called “Venetian colour” by Cassiodorus, translated “turchino” by Filiasi, vol. v. chap. iv. It was a very pale blue, as the place in which the word occurs is the description by Cassiodorus of the darkness which came over the sun’s disk at the time of the Belisarian wars and desolation of the Gothic kingdom.¹

8. [P. 66] INSCRIPTIONS AT MURANO

There are two other inscriptions on the border of the concha; but these, being written on the soffit of the face arch, which, as before noticed, is supported by the last two shafts of the chancel, could not be read by the congregation, and only with difficulty by those immediately underneath them. One of them is in black, the other in red letters. The first:

“Mutat quod sumsit, quod sollat crimina tandit

Et quod sumpsit, vultus vestisq. refulsit.”

The second:

“Discipuli testes, prophete certa videntes

Et cernunt purum, sibi credunt ese futurum.”

I have found no notice of any of these inscriptions in any Italian account of

¹ [Ruskin refers to turquoise, the Venetian colour, in a letter to his father:-

“24th November [1851].-When you have nothing particular to do, I should be grateful if you would look what the word Turquoise comes from; whether it means Turk’s stone, or whether blue was called Turk’s colour. I find blue was called Venetian colour, but it was a particular kind of blue called Turchino. The turquoise is called Turchina, and I don’t know if the stone was called from the colour, or the colour from the stone.”

The finest variety of the stone occurs in Persia, whence it originally reached western Europe by way of Turkey. The Venetians imported it from Turkey, and thus called it turchina or turchesa (French turquoise), the name being thence transferred to the colour of the stone.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]