INDEX¹

I HAVE endeavoured to make the following index as useful as possible to the traveller by indicating only the objects which are really worth his study. A traveller’s interest, stimulated as it is into strange vigour by the freshness of every impression, and deepened by the sacredness of the charm of association which long familiarity with any scene too fatally wears away,* is too precious a thing to be heedlessly wasted; and as it is physically impossible to see and to understand more than a certain quantity of art in a given time, the attention bestowed on second-rate works, in such a city as Venice, is not merely lost, but actually harmful,-deadening the interest and confusing the memory with respect to those which it is a duty to enjoy, and a disgrace to forget. The reader need not fear being misled by any omissions; for I have conscientiously pointed out every characteristic example, even of the styles which I dislike, and have referred to Lazari in all instances in which my own information failed: but if he is in anywise willing to trust me, I should recommend him to devote his principal attention, if he is fond of paintings, to the works of Tintoret, Paul Veronese, and John Bellini; not of course neglecting Titian, yet remembering that Titian can be well and thoroughly studied in almost any great European gallery, while Tintoret and Bellini can be judged of only in Venice, and Paul Veronese, though gloriously represented by the two great pictures in the Louvre,² and many others throughout Europe, is yet not to be

* “Am I in Italy? Is this the Mincius?

Are those the distant turrets of Verona?

And shall I sup where Juliet at the masque

Saw her loved Montague, and now sleeps by him?

Such questions hourly do I ask myself;

And not a stone in a crossway inscribed

‘To Mantua,’ ‘To Ferrara,’ but excites

Surprise, and doubt, and self-congratulation.”

Alas! after a few short months, spent even in the scenes dearest to history, we can feel thus no more.³

¹ [In the following Index the author’s additions made for the “Travellers’ Edition” of 1881 are enclosed in round brackets; the editors’ additions-with regard to which see above, Introduction, p. xxiii.-in square brackets. In following Ruskin’s topographical directions in this and the preceding volumes, the reader should remember that the canale is the broader, and the rio the narrower waterway. A fondamenta is a pathway alongside a canale or a rio; a calle, a street with houses on either side; a campo, a paved open place; a campiello, a smaller campo; a corte, a court; a salizzada is a paved street; for sacca see Vol. X. p. 37 n.]

² [At the time Ruskin wrote, “The Family of Darius,” now No. 294 in the National Gallery, had not been brought to London; it was purchased in 1857. Ruskin described it as “the most precious Paul Veronese in the world.” The “two great pictures in the Louvre” are “The Wedding Feast of Cana” and “The Dinner at Simon, the Pharisee’s”: see Ruskin’s “Notes on the Louvre” in Vol. XII.]

³ [See the letter to Rogers in the Introduction, above, p. xxvi.]

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