The Press.
London, England, 1854-02-18 00:00:00

61trtion ittelligturt.

The Sount STAFFORDSHIRE election terminated on
Saturday last, and on Monday the result of the poll
was officially proclaimed by the High Sheriff at the
Lichfield Guildhall. The numbers were—For Lord
Paget, 4,328; Lord Ingestre, 2,709: majority, LW).
Lord Paget took his seat in the House of Commons
on Tuesday.
The WEST Sussex election came off on Monday,
when the Conservative candidate, Mr. H. Wyndham,
was returned without opposition. Mr. Whitehouse
was proposed as an advocate of the ballot by a
Brighton chemist, and seconded by a Sussex farmer,
but his nominators would not demand a poll.
In SOUTH DEVON the vacancy caused by the death
of Sir Ralph Lopes, Bart, was filled up on Tuesday
by the return of Mr. Lawrence Palk.
The return of Mr. Fortescue for LOUTH is stated
to be quite certain. The Tenant• League candidate,
Mr. Cantwell, is hardly expected to go to the poll.
An important document has appeared, emanating
from Catholic clergyrr • n, and signed exclusively by
them, which replies with great power and effect to
the calumnies of the agitators against Mr. Fortescue.
Colonel Powell has announced his intention of re-
signing his seat for CARDIGANSHIRE.
Sir William Heathcote has been spending the week
at OXFORD, where he arrived on Monday on a visit to
his constituents,

FERRUARY 18, 1854.

f it tr a tit r t.

The Stones of Venice. By John Ruskin. With
Illustrations. 3 vols., Bvo. 1851-3. London :
Smith, Elder, and Co.
(Second Notice.)
A LARGE portion of the second volume
of this interesting work is devoted to the
minute consideration of those buildings,
both public and private, which the author
considers best worthy of attention. His
poetical description of the island of Tor-
cello will be read with much pleasure, particu-
larly by those who are not familiar with the
reality, or who love to see through the eyes of
their imagination rather than of their senses.
The island, remote and unwholesome, is de
serted by its inhabitants, and the episcopal
dignity which it preserved till the fall of the
republic is now suppressed, and the title
transferred to the Patriarch of Venice.
It is certain that the inhabitants of the main
land sought a temporary asylum at Torcello
from the cruelty of Attila, in the fifth century,
but it seems equally well attested that it was not
till the seventh that a colony was finally settled
on the island. The style of their churches Mr.
Ruskin surmises might have been suggested to
the exiles by the circumstances of adversity
under which they founded them. Compared with
Torcello, he thinks that "the Southern and Lom-
" bardic churches of Italy are gloomy and sepul-
" chral," and that the glittering mosaics and
bright sunlight admitted through capacious
openings are touching proofs of the desire of
"men in sorrow" to avoid the depressing effects
of material gloom.—Vol. 11., p.lB. This theory
is picturesque, but facts must not be distorted
to favour it. At an early date a church was
built upon the site on which the cathedral
now stands, and was very probably such a one
as would be raised by " men in sorrow."
It was small and mean, and constructed of
wood, and was afterwards consumed by fire.
The present church dates from the eleventh
century, when the inhabitants of the Lagunes
enjoyed as much happiness as those of any
other country, and a great deal more security
than their neighbours on the mainland. The
Cathedral of Torcello is built rather on the
model of the Roman basilica than of the Lom-
bard church; and the semicircular apse, the
episcopal throne, and the flight of lofty steps,
give it an air of greater antiquity than belongs
to it. The fine mosaics at each extremity of
the church, which Mr. Ruskin attributes to
the peculiar cast of the early settlers minds,
were not placed there till the thirteenth cen-
tury ; and the columns of the nave, sur-
mounted by capitals, which Mr. Hope justly
remarks are " indifferently imitated from
" the Corinthian " (but which Mr. Ruskin in-
dignantly denies), have evidently been removed
from some more ancient building. It was
thus that the triumphs of Christianity were
furnished forth with the spoils of Paganism.
Mr. Ruskin opens his chapter on St. Mark's
with an error :—" I am aware of no other city
" in Europe in which its cathedral is not the
" principal feature. But the principal church
" of Venice was the chapel attached to the
" palace of the prince, called the Chiesa Du-
" cale."—Vol. 1., p. 7. Surely Mr. Ruskin, when
he was an " under-graduate," (lid not consider
the cathedral the principal feature of Oxford ?
Has he forgotten that the magnificent Church
of St. Petronio is not the Cathedral of Bologna ;
that at Padua both St. Giustina and St. Anto-
nio are much larger and finer churches than
the Duomo ; and that, at Rome, St. John La-
teran, and not St. Peter's, is the metropolitan
church—" ecclesiartim urbis et orbis, mater et
coput"
The first impression of an unprejudiced
stranger in beholding St. Mark's would be that
it is singular rather than beautiful, that it is
crushed by the magnificence of surrounding
buildings, and that this defect is increased
by the absence of a stylobata or elevated plat-
form. The facade, though dating from the
twelfth century, has been materially altered in
succeeding ages. A gallery divides a double
tier of low arches, and the Moorish cupolas
that surmount the whole give it a wild and
Oriental character. The external mosaics
have been renewed from time to time, the

THE PRESS.

marbles with which the surface is encrusted
are rich and various, the bas reliefs are of
different kinds, and were introduced, not as
symbols, according to Mr. Ruskin's supposi-
tion, but for mere ornament, taken at hap-
hazard, wherever they could be found. One
panel in a conspicuous place at the right of
the façade represents Hercules slaying the
Hydra. The number of columns employed on
the façade is prodigious, but their profusion
and their diminutive size destroy the effect and
preclude the idea of utility. The pinnacles,
niches, finials, and foliation of the arches are
of a later date, and may be referred to the
end of the fourteenth or the beginning of
the following century.
The whole design, external and internal,
denotes a Byzantine origin : it has little
resemblance to the Romanesque of Lombardy,
still less to the primitive churches of Ravenna.
Mr. Ruskin takes unnecessary trouble to defend
" the architectural chivalry " of St. Mark's from
the imputation of insincerity to which the
use of " incrustation" in its decoration, he
thinks, might expose it. He had foreseen the
difficulty, it seems, and had provided against
it in " The Seven Lamps of Architecture."
The clumsiness of the workmanship and " the
" visible joints," he thinks, " acquit" the archi-
tect of any purpose of deceiving. We doubt if
the architect would thank him for the apo-
logy. The architect of the middle ages
found in the remains of ancient grandeur
both his model and his material ; and, if his
imitation has been unsuccessful, itis rather to
his want of skill that we must attribute it
than to an excess of candour. The roof is
supported by arches resting on pillars, a
compound of arcade and colonnade, unknown
to classic antiquity, suggested to the archi-
tects of the middle ages by the command that
ancient buildings gave them of marble
columns. Thus the multifarious pillars which
everywhere abound are not to be considered
" a proof of wealth," as Mr. Ruskin surmises,
but rather of poverty, while the variations in
the size of the shafts, which he thinks
agreeable to the eye, "as proving that they
" have not been cut down to match the rest,"
prove only the deficiency in mechanical skill
at the period, when no method was known
of making any impression on granite or
porphyry.
The interior of St. Mark's bears a greater, or,
at least, more unmixed, appearance of anti-
quity than the façade : it is gloomy, solemn,
gorgeous, and imposing. The walls, as well as
the vaulted ceiling, are encrusted with mosaics,
principally of the thirteenth century. The
mosaic art was the last to perish in the long
agony of Byzantine civilisation. Artists were
summoned from Ccnstantinople for the deco-
ration of this national church, and their
works, us Mr. Ruskin observes truly enough,
but not very consistently with his theory, "have
" a very noble character, and are by no means
" devoid of the science of the late Roman
" empire."—Vol. 11., p. 108. The subjects of
these mosaics are carefully selected so as to
convey a religious lesson, appropriate to each
part of the church. " But this gorgeous
" Bible," as our author terms it,written within
and without, " for the edification of the
people," which possessed so much in-
fluence on the sentiments of their ancestors,
he thinks is gazed on by the modern Ve-
netians with indifference, or feelings still
more reprehensible, and for this " he saddles
" them with a judgment." The crimes and
follies of the Venetians have been perpetuated
in front of this building, and with their Bible
in their hand :—" Know thou that for all these
" things God will bring thee intojudgment."—
Vol. II , p. 117.
From the sacred buildings of Venice, Mr.
Ruskin passes to a consideration of the pro-
fane, and many of his remarks are acute and
discriminating. It is greatly to be regretted
that so few of the palaces of an early date re-
main, and that these few should have been so
frequently and so carelessly restored. Of the
Byzantine period Mr. Ruskin describes seven
palaces at considerable length, and with much
detail.
The type of the Venetian Palace, as well as
of the Basilica, is to be found at Constan-
tinople. Outward appearance seems rather to
have been considered than internal conve-

159

nience, consequently the elevation is more
studied than the ground plan ; the general dis-
position of the apartments never varies from
the earliest to the latest period. We find
universally a ground floor abandoned to damp
offices and store-rooms, a low and comfortless
mezzanin, a steep staircase leading into a
large ante-chamber or hall, technically called
the " portico," which bisects the house,
lighted at each extremity by large windows
opening on a balcony, a suite of apart-
ments on each side of it, dark rooms to the
rear; a second floor repeating the first, and
perhaps an attic of meaner proportions but
similar distribution.
The Fondaco de' Turchi and the Palazzo
Loredan are the most perfect specimens uow
existing of the Byzantine period : the farmer
is in a much worse state than the latter, but has
been less altered. It once belonged to the
reigning family of Este, thence called the
" Casa del Marchese," and afterwards became
a sort of caravanserai for the Turkish limp
chants who frequented Venice. These Mr
Ruskin calls unimportant details not worth
recording. We cannot agree with him :
archieology, separated from history, loses half
its interest, and almost all its utility. Had
he made himself acquainted with the
history of the Loredan Palace, he would have
been saved the trouble of guessing, and of
guessing wrong. The escutcheon of Pierre
de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, with the corre-
sponding shields and emblems (to which
he assigns a remoter date), were placed on
the palace to commemorate the visit of that
prince in the latter part of the fourteenth cen-
tury. The palace at that time belonged to the
family of Corner della Piscopia (so called from
their possessions in Cyprus), who placed it at
the King's disposal. Both palaces are built
on the same design, with double arcades sup-
ported by columns coarsely imitating the Corin-
thian, and both probably were once encrusted
with marbles and bas-reliefs removed from
other buildings, of which some traces yet re-
main in the Fondaco de' Turchi. Mr. Ruskin
praises the subtlety with which the distances
of the intercolumniations are varied so as to
aid the harmony of effect : we should have
considered it a greater beauty had the two
galleries been arranged in mutual correspon-
dence, so that the axis of the pillars in each
tier should be in the same straight line. This has
notbeen attended to, and the effect is displeasing
to the eye, while the " subtle proportion" of
each arch is lost upon it. Whatever neglect or
carelessness Mr. Ruskin discovers in the archi-
tects of that remote period he attributes to
deep design, a piece of candour which reminds
us of the sly insinuation of the Spectator :
" Whenever our renders find us particularly
" dull, we beg them to believe wo have a good
" reason for it."

The Gothic palaces of Venice are more
beautiful and richer than those of an earlier
period. The two styles, however, are not un-
frequently blended, and part of the old mate-
rials were often used in refabrication, so that
it is not safe to pronounce on the date of a
building from the fashion of its enrichments.
Mr. Ruskin, we think, has once or twice
fallen into this error. The Gothic period
includes all the fourteenth and part of the
fifteenth centuries, and the buildings of
this date bear a strong resemblance to
each other. Intersecting arches of con-
trary flexion, with mouldings rich and va-
rious, arranged singly or in groups, belong
to all, but each possesses some peculiarity,
some individuality of character that forbids
the reproach of monotony. The walls are of
brick, and the enrichments of stone. The in-
troduction of rich and costly marbles on the
façade belongs to the Renaissance period, and,
if they are ever found with the pointed arch,
it is indubitable that they are interpolations
of a later date.
Of all the buildings of the Gothic period,
the Ducal Palace, though the latest, is the
most interesting, and, in Mr.Rusldn's opinion,
it is also the most beautiful, not of Venice
only, but of Europe. We dare hardly believe
that, if it had been built at Westminster in-
stead of the new Parliament houses, be would
have maintained this opinion ; and we further
suspect that not a little of his admiration is
owing to the contempt of " the five orders',