lviii INTRODUCTION

Full bibliographical particulars about St. Mark’s Rest are given elsewhere (p. 195), but what has here been said is enough to explain the comparatively fragmentary nature of the book. This characteristic has not escaped the critics, who have noted also that “much of it seems to be addressed to children of tender age.” In quoting from one of the chapters, Ruskin himself said at Oxford that it was “meant for a lecture.”¹ These little Italian guides were professedly written to assist young students. They irritate some readers by the occasional querulousness of their tone. “Aids to depression in the shape of certain little humorous-ill-humorous-pamphlets,” Mr. Henry James called them.² The sympathetic reader, however, is not irritated; while the judicious, among those who do not sympathise with Ruskin’s mood, know how to discriminate. “We edify ourselves,” wrote George Eliot from Venice in 1880, “with what Ruskin has written in an agreeable pamphlet shape, using his knowledge gratefully, and shutting our ears to his wrathful innuendoes against the whole modern world.”³ And Mr. James goes on to admit that the book is “all suggestive and much of it delightfully just.” The little red hand-books have been as familiar in Venice as the “Mornings” in Florence. American reprints have been particularly numerous, and recently an admirable Italian translation, illustrated and carefully edited, has been issued. To the Italian notes the present editors are indebted for several references and particulars.

Of the manuscript of St. Mark’s Rest, a small portion is in the possession of Mr. F. W. Hilliard. This portion is from about the middle of § 94 to the end of § 96, and also from towards the end of § 106 to the end of § 110. The rest is unknown to the editors.

RESTORATIONS AT ST. MARK’S, VENICE

The Fifth Part in this volume contains two pieces which Ruskin wrote in the years 1877-1879, in protest against restorations at St. Mark’s, Venice, some already accomplished, others at that time threatened. Particulars must here be given to explain the occasion, and the results, of his intervention. The work of restoration has been in progress at St. Mark’s, according as means permitted, ever since 1840, and in the opinion of successive architects and engineers, the Basilica would otherwise have been in danger of falling to pieces. This point of view, which it is right to bear in mind, was forcibly expressed, a few years after Ruskin wrote, in the columns of the Times:⁴-

“St. Mark’s was built by men who were admirable artists but wretched builders; it was built probably in parts, and without any appreciation of

¹ Studies in Ruskin, p. 244.

² An article on “Venice” in The Century Magazine, November 1882, vol. xxv. p. 3.

³ George Eliot’s Life, by J. W. Cross, 1885, vol. iii. p. 405.

⁴ August 5, 1886.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]