xlviii INTRODUCTION

again, and more generally, Ruskin says in the third volume of Modern Painters (ch. viii. § 1) that the two books “are parts of one whole, divided merely as I had occasion to follow out one or other of its branches; for I have always considered architecture as an essential part of landscape.”

This, however, was an ex post facto harmony of conclusions. At the time The Stones of Venice seemed a digression, and its teaching may properly be isolated and regarded as significant in itself. We have noticed already ¹ one of its main themes, connecting it with The Seven Lamps of Architecture-namely, its illustration of the principle laid down in the earlier book, that architecture is the expression of certain states in the moral temper of the people by and for whom it is produced. It is unnecessary to give here any outline of the argument. The progress of it, though occasionally delayed by digressions, is perfectly clear and orderly throughout; moreover, the author himself has given two summaries of it-first and fully, in an introduction to the Venetian Index (Vol. XI.); secondly and more shortly, in the preface to the edition of 1874 (see Vol. IX. p. 14). What is here proposed is to call attention to a few points which either have significance in relation to Ruskin’s subsequent work, or which have had traceable influence on the art and thought of our time.

The use of architecture as an historical document was one of the original and fruitful points in Ruskin’s Venetian work,² and later studies in Venetian history have on the whole tended to confirm the substantial accuracy of his conclusions in this particular case. If it is said that he made too little of political forces and ignored some commercial factors altogether-especially, for instance, the discovery of the Cape route in 1486, which to the historians had a principal effect in hastening the decline of Venetian supremacy³-the answer is that he was dealing with moral causes and conditions which were long antecedent to that particular event, and of which, as he maintained, political changes were the expression rather than the cause.⁴ The question is whether his theory, deduced from the spirit of Venetian architecture, is or is not in general conformity with the other orders of facts upon which general historians are wont exclusively to dwell. The answer is that substantially and with some qualifications Ruskin was right. This is the view of the modern historian of the Republic. “Ruskin,” says Mr. Horatio Brown,”carried his theories further than history, faithfully studied, would warrant, but in most cases he had reason on his side. It may be doubted if the year 1418

¹ See Vol. IX. p. xxi. ² Compare Vol. IX. p. xlii.

See St. Mark’s Rest, § 34.

See ch. i. of the first volume, and especially p. 18 n. (Vol. IX.).

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