CHAPTER IX

(Edited by J. Ruskin)

SANCTUS, SANCTUS, SANCTUS

AN ACCOUNT OF THE MOSAICS IN THE BAPTISTERY

OF ST. MARK’S

“The whole edifice is to be regarded less as a temple wherein to pray than as itself a Book of Common Prayer, a vast illuminated missal, bound with alabaster instead of parchment.” Stones of Venice, ii. 4, 46.

“We must take some pains, therefore, when we enter St. Mark’s, to read all that is inscribed, or we shall not penetrate into the feeling either of the builder or of his times.” Stones of Venice, ii. 4, 64.

133. THE following catalogue of the mosaics of the Baptistery of St. Mark’s was written in the autumn of 1882, after a first visit to Venice, and was then sent to Mr. Ruskin as a contribution to his collected records of the church. It was not intended for publication, but merely as notes or material for which he might possibly find some use; and if the reader in Venice will further remember that it is the work of no artist or antiquarian, but of a traveller on his holiday, he will, it is hoped, be the more ready to pardon errors and omissions which his own observation can correct and supply.* The mosaics of the Baptistery are, of course, only a small portion of those to be seen throughout the church, but that portion is one complete in itself, and more than enough to illustrate the vast amount of thought contained in the scripture legible on the walls of St. Mark’s

* This chapter (now, 1894, revised) was written in ignorance of the book on St. Mark’s, La Chiesa Ducale, of Giovanni Meschinello (Venice, 1753), and before the issue of the Guide de la Basilique St. Marc, by Antoine Pasini (Schio, 1888). Both these works give the inscriptions, and to some extent describe the mosaics throughout the church. The first is,

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[Version 0.04: March 2008]