xlviii INTRODUCTION

monuments, with the frescoes behind them, in the Church of Santa Anastasia at Verona. This church, and the square outside, were among Ruskin’s favourite spots, and he willingly undertook to write an essay to accompany the picture. This he did during his sojourn at Verona in 1872 (see Vol. XXII. p. xxviii.). The present reprint is from the original monograph, and corrects a few misprints which had crept into later publications of the essay (see p. 126).

“GUIDE TO THE ACADEMY AT VENICE”

The Guide “to the principal pictures in the Academy of Fine Arts at Venice” was the first outcome of Ruskin’s visit to that city in 1876-1877. For bibliographical details the reader is referred to p. 143. The present text, it should here be explained, is that not of the latest but of the first edition (1877). The reason is this: the later edition of 1891 was not revised by Ruskin, but was prepared for him by Mr. Wedderburn in order to suit a slight rearrangement of the Gallery which had then been made. Since 1891, however, the Gallery has again and more completely been rearranged. The text of 1891 is as much out of date, so far as references to the position of pictures go, as is the text of 1877. In these circumstances it has seemed best to reprint the Guide exactly as Ruskin wrote it, and to supply in notes and by other means the necessary corrections. The numbers are those which the several pictures now (1906) bear; particulars of alterations in the rooms in which they are placed are given in footnotes; while a list of the pictures, arranged according to rooms, is prefixed to the Guide, so that a reader who desires to read in a particular room all the notes on pictures therein contained may readily find the pages.

RUSKIN AND CARPACCIO

Much of the Guide to the Academy at Venice, and many pages of St. Mark’s Rest, are devoted to the works of Carpaccio. His account of Carpaccio is, however, not so complete as he intended to make it. He promised to resume the study of the series of St. Ursula’s pilgrimage (p. 163), but this he did not do; in the same Guide he referred to an intended “Separate Guide to the Works of Carpaccio in Venice” (p. 179), but this also was not published. His notices of Carpaccio are in fact scattered through several different publications, and it may be useful, therefore, to bring the principal references together here, and to

[Version 0.04: March 2008]