lxii INTRODUCTION

the new work which he had substituted, because it was more precise and regular than the old; to this article Ruskin refers (Circular, § 12). In connexion with the public meetings a Memorial was drawn up for presentation to the Italian Government. Gladstone signed it (at Burne-Jones’s instance¹), and so also did Lord Beaconsfield. Ruskin’s contribution to the English movement was the publication of the Circular respecting Memorial Studies of St. Mark’s, which is here printed (pp. 412-424). He described yet again the wonder and the beauty of the building, which indeed, he said, was not so much a piece of architecture, as “a jewelled casket and painted reliquary.” He wished all success to the protest, which, as we have seen, he had anticipated in Venice itself, and asked for assistance towards completing his Memorial Studies. He showed also in the rooms of the Society of Painters in Water-Colours a series of photographs, showing the past and present state of the building. His Circular was distributed to all visitors at the Water-Colour Exhibition, as also at that of the works of Prout and Hunt in Bond Street. In his catalogue of the latter Exhibition Ruskin again refers to the subject (Vol. XIV. pp. 427-429). He wrote, as will be seen, in much wrath and despair.

Yet already his efforts had been successful. Some say that the protests in England availed; “the roaring of the British Lion,” it was suggested, “had saved the Lion of St. Mark.”² The Venetian writers say that Count Zorzi’s pamphlet was the important thing, and certainly Ruskin’s appeal therein was more adroit than some of the utterances in England. However this may be, already before the Memorial was presented, the Italian authorities had taken decisive action. Threatened works were arrested, and the standing Commission for the Preservation of Monuments appointed a Committee to consider the whole question. This Committee reported in March 1880.³ Its Report, which was afterwards adopted in a Government Minute, was a complete vindication of Count Zorzi and Ruskin. It laid down in the strongest terms that henceforth the principle of preservation was to prevail over that of reconstruction, and that any structural repairs were to be executed “with the most scrupulous regard for the preservation of the monument in every particular.” A Committee of Superintendence was appointed, and it was ordered that Meduna’s substituted marbles should as far as possible be replaced by others more nearly resembling those of the ancient fabric. In the further restoration of the south front and south-west portico, which was completed in 1886, these principles were observed, and the west front itself

¹ See Memorials of Edward Burne-Jones, vol. ii. pp. 95-96.

² See the Third Annual Meeting and Report of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings (June 28, 1880).

³ The Report is fully summarised in Boito, ut supra, pp. 929 seq.

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