264 ST. MARK’S REST

had fields, and plots of garden here and there; and, far and near, sweet woods of Calypso,¹ graceful with quivering sprays, for woof of nests-gaunt with forked limbs for ribs of ships; had good milk and butter from familiarly couchant cows; thickets wherein familiar birds could sing;-and finally was observant of clouds and sky, as pleasant and useful phenomena. And she had at due distances among her simple dwellings, stately churches of marble.

These things you may know, if you will, from the following “quite ridiculous” tradition, which, ridiculous as it may be, I will beg you for once to read,² since the Doge Andrea Dandolo wrote it for you,³ with the attention due to the address of a Venetian gentleman, and a King.*

73. “As head and bishop of the islands, the Bishop Magnus of Altinum went from place to place to give them comfort, saying that they ought to thank God for having escaped from these barbarian cruelties. And there appeared to him St. Peter, ordering him that in the head of Venice, or truly of the city of Rivoalto, where he should find oxen and sheep feeding, he was to build a church under his (St. Peter’s) name. And thus he did; building St. Peter’s

* A more graceful form of this legend has been translated with feeling and care by the Countess Isobel Cholmeley in Bermani, from a MS. in her possession, copied, I believe, from one of the tenth century.⁴ But I take the form in which it was written by Andrea Dandolo, that the reader may have more direct associations with the beautiful image of the Doge on his tomb in the Baptistery.

¹ [Again a reference to the Odyssey: see the passage given in Modern Painters, vol. iii. (Vol. V. pp. 234, 235).]

² [For a shorter reference to the tradition, see Stones of Venice, vol. iii. (Vol. XI. p. 137); and for another reference to it, the Preface to Cœli Enarrant (Vol. VI. p. 487).]

³ [In fact, however, Ruskin translates the following passage (§ 73) not from the Chronicle of Andrea Dandolo, but from Sanuto’s Vite dei Dogi (see pp. 2-3 of Carducci’s edition of Muratori, tomo xxii., parte iv.).]

⁴ [Ruskin had made the acquaintance of the Contessa Isobel Curtis-Cholmeley in Bermani at Venice; she must have shown him the translation here mentioned; it does not appear among her few printed works.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]