INTRODUCTION liii

the scene is a faithful representation of Venetian processions.¹ Of this picture there are three studies in the Ruskin Museum at Sheffield-a copy, full size, in oil, by J. W. Bunney, of the banners of St. George and St. Ursula and part of the procession; and sketches, by Mr. Fairfax Murray, of the central portion (here reproduced) and of part of the background. Ruskin showed an aquatint of the picture at his Bond Street Exhibition of 1878 (see Vol. XIII. p. 527); this aquatint is now at Oxford (Vol. XXI. p. 37, No. 111).

7. Arrival of St. Ursula at Cologne with the Pope, who has joined the pilgrimage.-This is No. 579 in the Academy (dated 1490). The picture is dismissed by Ruskin as “unworthy” (see the Guide, p. 167), and in this opinion Signor Molmenti concurs.² It was the picture which Carpaccio did first.

8. Martyrdom and Funeral Procession of St. Ursula.-This is No. 580 (dated 1493); partly shown on Plate LII. Ruskin notices it in the Guide (p. 167); in St. Mark’s Rest, § 206; and in “An Oxford Lecture” (Vol. XXII. p. 535). He made a study of “St. Ursula on her Bier,” which is in the Oxford Collection;³ while at Sheffield there are two studies by Mr. Fairfax Murray of “The Moment before Martyrdom.”⁴ In this picture, again, Carpaccio introduced the portraits of contemporaries.⁵ An old engraving of the picture was shown at Ruskin’s Exhibition of 1878 (Vol. XIII. p. 526, 52 R).

9. The Apotheosis of St. Ursula.-This is No. 576 in the Academy (dated 1491); Plate LIII. here. For Ruskin’s note on it, see the Guide (p. 167). Drawings for some of the girls’ heads on the left are in Mr. Gathorne Hardy’s collection; these, as well as the heads of the three men behind, are portraits.⁶

These pictures, as we have seen, suffered much from barbarous treatment, and from repainting. Afterwards, in the Academy at Venice, they received little honour, being hung, as Ruskin mentions, “out of sight, seven feet above the ground.”⁷ He was able to study and describe them so closely only by special favour of the authorities, who, as has been said, had the pictures taken down for him. The importance which Ruskin, an honorary member of the Venetian Academy, attached to the pictures, the fame of them which he noised

¹ Vittore Carpaccio et la Confrérie de Sainte Ursule à Venise, by Pompeo Molmenti and Gustave Ludwig, 1903, pp. 86 seq.

² Ibid., p. 89.

³ See Vol. XXI. p. 200; and compare Vol. XIII. p. 526 (50 R).

⁴ See Vol. XIII. p. 526 (53 R).

⁵ See Molmenti, p. 92.

⁶ See Molmenti, pp. 96, 97.

⁷ E. T. Cook’s Studies in Ruskin, p. 257 (report of a lecture in The Pleasures of England course, reprinted in a later volume).

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