IV. ST. THEODORE THE CHAIR-SELLER 253

There is no doubt, therefore, of the purposeful choosing and placing of these bas-reliefs. Where the outer ones were brought from, I know not; the four inner ones, I think, are all contemporary, and carved for their place by the Venetian scholars of the Greek schools, in late twelfth or early thirteenth century.

58. My special reason for assigning this origin to them is the manner of the foliage under the feet of the Gabriel, in which is the origin of all the early foliage in the Gothic of Venice. This bas-relief, however, appears to be by a better master than the others-perhaps later; and is of extreme beauty.

Of the ruder St. George, and successive sculptures of Evangelists on the north side, I cannot yet speak with decision;¹ nor would you, until we have followed the story of Venice farther, probably care to hear.

¹ [Nor, in the published chapters of St. Mark’s Rest, does Ruskin do so later. In the MS., however, there are the following notes on the sculptures in question:-

“1. The large St. Christopher under arch with very depressed gable above on the narrowly projecting end of transept.

“I am not sure of this. It unites Byzantine with what seems to me later characters in a lovely way; at any rate it is exquisitest work of this Byzantine school; all the proportions of the lateral shafts, leaves of capitals, etc., as fine as can be. You cannot examine it too long or too carefully.

“2. Group of the Evangelists-St. John, St. Matthew, and St. Luke-on wall of transept. All sitting.

“3. St. John the Evangelist standing, above the Arabian door.

“4. St. Mark sitting, on the right-hand side of this Arabian door.

“All these Evangelists are, I think, thirteenth-century transitional work, as also the Arabian door itself and the bas-relief above it.

“5. A small horizontal panel with sacrifice of Isaac, a quaint little piece of late work imitating the Greek symbolical manner; that is to say, the thicket is one small tree, the ram caught in it stands quietly beside its stem, the altar is a slender pillar with fire on the top, and the interference of the Deity represented only by a hand emerging from the foliage.

“6. A goddess of light-what goddess I can do no more than guess, and mean to find out. The orb beneath her is radiated; she shakes flames from the long torches in her hands, and is ascending in a chariot driven by griffins, the wheels put far away on the right and left, merely as signs they are there. Entirely Eastern-Greek in treatment; no doubt an imported sculpture.

“7. St. George standing. The worst ...”

Here the MS. breaks off.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]