410 ST. MARK’S, VENICE

writing, illustrated by her monuments, I am going to give an account of the façade of St. Mark’s to my English pupils, and there will be an entire chapter devoted to the explanation of the difference between dead and living work, with no other illustration than these new and old mouldings. But all these questions of less or more beautiful are irrelevant to the ground of chief regret. Though the new building were in all points fairer than the old, the fact would remain the same that it was not the old church, but a model of it. Is this, to the people of the lagoons, no loss? To us foreigners, it is total loss. We can build models of St. Mark’s for ourselves, in England, or in America. We came to Venice to see that St. Mark’s whose pillars had trembled with Crusaders’ shouts, seven hundred years ago. We came to bow ourselves beneath the vaults where Barbarossa bowed;¹ and we find them squalid with neglect, and shattered by the rudest hands. We came to kneel on the pavement where the Doge Selvo walked barefoot to receive his crown:² and we find it torn up to be replaced by the vile advertisement of a mosaic manufactory!

9. But now I must be mute, for shame, knowing as I do that English influence and example are at the root of many of these mischiefs; unless, indeed, I venture partly to answer the question which will occur to the readers whom you convince,-what means of preservation ought to be used for a building which it is impossible to restore. The single principle is, that after any operation whatsoever necessary for the safety of the building, every external stone should be set back in its actual place: if any are added to strengthen the walls, the new stones, instead of being made to resemble the old ones, should be left blank of sculpture, and every one have the date of its insertion engraved upon it. The future antiquary would then still

¹ [See the passage from Rogers’s Italy quoted in Stones of Venice, vol. i. (Vol. IX. p. 28): compare Fiction, Fair and Foul, § 90.]

² [See St. Mark’s Rest, § 81 (above, p. 271).]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]