INTRODUCTION lxi

reprinted (pp. 405-411). It was translated into Italian, and its eloquent and powerful arguments were so addressed as to make strong appeal to Venetian readers. Ruskin was on friendly terms with most of the local antiquaries, and with many of the influential citizens. He alluded to himself as “a foster-child of Venice”; he depicted once more in glowing terms the splendour of her monuments; he applauded the patriotic spirit of Count Zorzi, a Venetian noble worthy of “the lords of ancient Venice”; and, in what he condemned, he blamed rather the mistaken spirit of the time than the Venetians, who had still “the genius, the conscience, the ingenuity of their race.” He reinforced the Count’s plea for the careful preservation of the old marbles, and his description of the beauty of the old colouring. In this connexion he referred to his own drawing of the south side, made thirty years before. The drawing, now in the Oxford Collection, which seems to be the one referred to, forms the frontispiece to the present volume.¹

The protest of Count Zorzi and his English friend was not to be unavailing; but at the time Ruskin was in sore distress and displeasure.² Nothing was left for him to do, of practical effort, he felt, except to collect such records as might be possible of a building now doomed to destruction. He employed Mr. T. M. Rooke, then an assistant in Burne-Jones’s studio, to make drawings of the mosaics. Mr. Rooke entered upon the task with enthusiasm, and Ruskin invited subscriptions towards the work. He inserted an appeal in St. Mark’s Rest (see below, p. 132), and also in the “Travellers’ Edition” of The Stones of Venice (Vol. X. p. 463). The mosaics of St. Mark’s and the capitals of the Ducal Palace, which was also under restoration, “become to me every day,” he wrote, “more precious both for their art and their meaning,” and he set his heart on preserving some memorial of the treasures which a perverse generation seemed bent upon destroying. Meanwhile William Morris and Burne-Jones were busy in organising a protest in England. The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings had recently been founded, and Morris, on its behalf, wrote letters to the papers and arranged for public meetings. At one of these, held in Oxford on November 15, 1879, Burne-Jones was prevailed upon to speak-the only occasion in his life on which he thus appeared in public. The newspapers took up the subject, and “special correspondents” discussed it from various points of view. Among the articles was one in the Standard³ which quoted a statement made by Meduna in his defence. He gloried in

¹ A drawing of the southern portico, before restoration, is engraved as Plate 6 in the Examples of Venetian Architecture (Vol. XI. p. 330).

² See § 1 of the Circular (p. 412).

³ See below, p. 421 and n.

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