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The reference at Notebook M2 p.131 is to the Duomo, which was seen by Ruskin, and by Lindsay, as distinctive, not least because of the perceived ‘Saracenic’ influence on it.
On Arab influence in general see Works, 9.39:
The Arab school is at first the same [as the Byzantine] in its principal features, the Byzantine workmen being employed by the caliphs; but the Arab rapidly introduces characters half Persepolitan, half Egyptian into the shafts and capitals: in his intense love of excitement he points the arch and writhes it into extravagant foliations; he banishes the animal imagery, and invents an ornamentation of his own (called Arabesque) to replace it: this not being adapted for covering large surfaces, he concentrates it on features of interest, and bars his surfaces with horizontal lines of colour, the expression of the level of the desert. He retains the dome and adds the minaret. All is done with exquisite refinement.
At Works, 9.40 the Lombard glacier streams are said to be warmed by the lava streams of the Arabs.
At Works, 12.189 Ruskin quotes Lindsay (1847) II p.10 on the ‘occasional and rare’ feature, ‘seen to particular advantage in the cathedral of Cremona, of numerous slender towers, rising, like minarets, in every direction, in front and behind, and giving to the east end particularly, a marked resemblance to the mosques of the Mahometans’.
For images see here.
See also Works, 12.41 and the reference at Notebook M2 p.3back to the Netherland minaret Brussels, where the reference is perhaps to the tower of the Hôtel de Ville in Brussels, completed in flamboyant style in 1455.
Ruskin had not seen a minaret, but exotic images of the Ottoman Empire were a part of European fantasy in the middle of the nineteenth century. Examples of images of minarets are Sir William Allan, The Slave Market Constantinople 1838, National Gallery of Scotland, Edinburgh (Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Visions of the Ottoman Empire,Exhibition Catalogue 1994) or David Roberts The Gate of Metawalea 1843, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
See also Verona Book pp.11-19. The reference at Bit Book p.46L is to the Church of San Domenico, Cremona, not the Duomo.
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[Version 0.05: May 2008]