INTRODUCTION li

elaborate account of St. Mark’s-one of the buildings which derive from St. Sofia-had much effect in arousing interest in Byzantine architecture. “The half century that has passed since he wrote has thrown a flood of light,” says Mr. Frederic Harrison, “upon the history of Byzantine art and its far-radiating influence on all forms of art in the West. It is a remarkable instance of Ruskin’s genius that, long before the special studies in Southern Italy and the Mediterranean seaboard which have given us so much new information, he does seem to have said nothing which the later studies have disproved, if, indeed, he does not seem from time to time implicitly to have felt the truth.”¹ In the present day the study of Byzantine art has led to an adoption of Byzantine architecture, of which Mr. Bentley’s Roman Catholic Cathedral at Westminster, now in process of being incrusted internally with marble and mosaics, is so conspicuous an illustration. It is thus not unreasonable to trace back to The Stones of Venice, with its vindication of St. Mark’s from the charge of barbarism, some share in the influences which have led to a Byzantine Revival. In his study of the details of St. Mark’s, again, Ruskin broke new ground, at any rate for English readers. The elaborate works on the subject which enthusiasm. He described the church as an illuminated Bible, and he was the first English writer who devoted any serious attention to reading its letters (? Lindsay). There was already a description of the church published in Venice in 1753-1754-La Chiesa Ducale di S. Marco colle Notizie del suo Innalzamento, Spiegazione delli Mosaici, e delle Iscrizioni; un Dettaglio della preziosità delli marmi, con tutto ciò che di fuori et di dentro vi si contienè; e con varie riflessioni et scoporte, 3 vols. To this book a reference is made below, p. 137 n. The author (as stated in a MS. note in a copy in the possession of Mr. Wedderburn) was Giovanni Meschinello, “priest of Santa Maria Zobenigo and of the Church of S. Marco; a learned man and much devoted to books.” Among the books of a date later than

¹ John Ruskin, 1900, p. 71. Mr. Harrison has given an interesting sketch of the influence and character of the arts of Constantinople in his Rede Lecture, Byzantine History of the Early Middle Ages, 1900: see especially pp. 29-33. I am unable to follow entirely his statement in the former work (p. 70) that Ruskin failed to understand “the real relation of the buildings and arts he found at Venice to their true sources in the Byzantine school and in Greek invention.” The connection was one of Ruskin’s main theses in his book, and he frequently refers to the employment of Greek workmen in Venice (see also St. Mark’s Rest, § 57). Probably Mr. Harrison was thinking of the distinction which Ruskin drew-most clearly in the Seven Lamps (Vol. VIII. pp. 119-121)-between Greek and Byzantine; a distinction which, in the later note to that passage, he corrects; see also St. Mark’s Rest, § 92. In his later books he frequently insists on the connection between the arts of Greece and of Italy (see, e.g., his preface to The Economist of Xenophon (Bibliotheca Pastorum). On this subject, see further St. George (the Journal of the Ruskin Union), October 1903 p. 319.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]