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The Ruskin Library Transcript reads ‘spells justitia chomum’.
It is clear from the context - ‘he gives first part of inscription’ - that this is part of a note taken from Zanotto, and Ruskin’s interest is in the spelling by Zanotto of the words on the Dandolo tomb ‘justitia / justisia’ and ‘chomun / chomum’. Ruskin is not here giving his own reading but is reporting the reading of Zanotto.
‘justitia’ is unambiguous in the manuscript.
The Ruskin Library Transcript T7B then reads ‘chomum’. That seems a misreading of the manuscript, where ‘chomun’ seems clear enough. It has not been possible to find the work by Zanotto to which Ruskin refers here, but at Works, 11.301 Ruskin cites Zanotto’s transcription as ‘justitia’ and ‘chomun’, and that would confirm the reading ‘chomun’ here in Ruskin’s note of what Zanotto wrote.
At Works, 11.97 the spellings used in Ruskin’s transcription are ‘justisia’ and ‘chomum’: ‘AMADOR DE JUSTISIA E DESIROSO DE ACRESE EL BEN CHOMUM’. At Works, 11.301 Ruskin berates Zanotto for the inaccuracy of his transcription of the words as ‘justitia’ and ‘chomun’. It is not clear what Ruskin sees as the significance of ‘chomum’ and it is not clear that Zanotto was inaccurate in his transcription.
There are parallels for ‘ben comun’, for example in Lorenzetti’s fresco of 1338-9 on the North Wall of the Sala dei Nove in Siena: ‘UN BEN COMUN SIGNOR SIFANNO’. Piccio (1928) Testi Dialettali: Secolo XIV gives the spellings on the Dandolo tomb as ‘iustitia’ and ‘comun’. Zanotto’s reading therefore seems plausible. The aspiration presumably represents the guttural forms of the Venetian dialect to which Ruskin refers at Works, 10.407.
Whatever conclusions are drawn about the relative accuracy of Zanotto and Ruskin, it would seem illogical, though not impossible, that Ruskin would have cited Zanotto at Notebook M2 p.13backL as using the form which at Works, 11.301 he complained that Zanotto had not used. The reading ‘chomun’ therefore seems better at Notebook M2 p.13backL.
There is a possible reference to the Dandolo tomb at Notebook M p.157, where Ruskin seems to call it the ‘Giustiniani’.
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[Version 0.05: May 2008]