GUIDE TO THE ACADEMY AT VENICE 177

steps of the king’s court of justice, and their marble sharp and bright out of the turf. Clean everything, and pure;-no cigars in anybody’s poisoned mouth,-no voiding of perpetual excrement of saliva on the precious marble or living flowers. Perfect peace and befittingness of behaviour in all men and creatures. Your very monkey in repose, perfect in his mediæval dress; the Darwinian theory in all its sacredness, breadth, divinity, and sagacity,-but reposeful, not venturing to thrust itself into political council. Crowds on the bridges and quays, but untumultuous, close set as beds of flowers, richly decorative in their mass, and a beautiful mosaic of men, and of black, red, blue, and golden bonnets. Ruins, indeed, among the prosperity; but glorious ones;-not shells of abandoned speculation, but remnants of mighty state long ago, now restored to nature’s peace; the arches of the first bridge the city had built, broken down by storm, yet what was left of them spared for memory’s sake. (So stood for a little while, a few years ago, the broken Ponte-a-Mare at Pisa;¹ so at Rome, for ages, stood the Ponte Rotto, till the engineers and modern mob got at it, making what was in my youth the most lovely and holy scene in Rome, now a place where a swineherd could not stand without holding his nose, and which no woman can stop at.²)

But here, the old arches are covered with sweet weeds, like native rock, and (for once!) reflected a little in the pure water under the meadowy hills. Much besides of noteworthy, if you are yourself worthy of noting it, you may find in this lovely distance. But the picture, it may

¹ [See in Vol. XXIII., Plate I., and Val d’Arno, § 282 (p. 165).]

² [The Ponte Rotto, on the site of the ancient Pons Æmilius (which fell down in the thirteenth century) was restored in 1554 and again in 1575. In 1598 the part on the left bank of the river was carried away; two arches were thus lost, and the bridge remained, till recently, in its ruined condition. It was “highly picturesque, and has been painted by every artist in Rome,” and from it was “the exquisite view of the Isola Tiberina” (see Hare’s Walks in Rome, 13th ed., vol. i. p. 153). At the time when Ruskin wrote, embankment works were in progress; at a later date (1885-1886) the old bridge (with the exception of a single arch) was destroyed, and a suspension bridge was built.]

XXIV. M

[Version 0.04: March 2008]