chronology of the notes referring to the Palazzo Cavalli said to be ‘next the Post Office’

The assumptions on which this note is based are:

• unless there is good reason to think otherwise the presumption is that right hand pages of M and M2 are numbered in chronological sequence, and that the same is true of the Sheets;
• left hand pages of M and M2 are used for later annotations of the text on the right hand side as well as drawing and measurements made at the same time as the text on the right;
• Ruskin used sheets and small notebooks for notes (including drawings and measurements) which he later wrote up in one or other of M or M2, writing ‘Done’ at the bottom when the writing up was complete.

According to Notebook M p.145L ‘long ago’, and certainly before the Sheet No. 155 Ruskin made a daguerrotype of the Palazzo Cavalli next to the Post Office. A daguerrotype of a Palazzo Cavalli is catalogued in Ruskin's list of daguerrotypes but is said to have been ‘put away’. It cannot be traced.

There do not appear to be any references to the Palazzo Cavalli next the post office in any of the House Books or in any of the other small notebooks apart from N. In Notebook N p.44 (called in this passage French Book 44) Ruskin notes that the capitals of the Foscari Palace are ‘just like post office palace’. The context there, and the sense of Notebook M p.145L which refers to it, make it clear that Ruskin was referring to the Palazzo Cavalli - that is to say, not the Post Office itself, but the palace he thought of as being near the Post Office. These notes, which relate primarily to the Foscari Palace, are the first Venetian notes in N, but it does not follow that any of them came from the early days of his stay. Dating the reference to ‘the Post Office palace’ is further complicated by the fact that the note including that reference was part of a passage of overwriting in ink. It is not clear whether it appeared in the earlier pencil note. If he knew the name at this stage he does not use it, and there is no evidence on which to base a view about the relationship between this note and the daguerrotype.

Notebook M2 p.70 has a sentence:

I happened to-day to pass from the best example of the florid capital I have yet found - the palace near Post office (Cavalli?) to the Casa Falier

The use of the question mark suggests that Ruskin is uncertain about the name, but at Notebook M2 p.70 he does suggest a possible name, something he does not do at Notebook N p.44. Ruskin links page Notebook M2 p.70 to Sheet Nos. 137 and 138 [n/a], whereabouts unknown, but said by Ruskin at Notebook M2 p.70 to be of the Casa Falier. On the assumption that the sheets are numbered chronologically, and there seems to be no reason to doubt that they are, Notebook M p.145L with its reference to Sheet No. 155 and its unqualified identification as Palazzo Cavalli, is likely to have been written after Notebook M2 p.70.

The next reference to this Palazzo Cavalli in M is at Notebook M p.199. There Ruskin is concerned with bases at the Cavalli and in St. Mark’s. At Notebook M p.199, as at Notebook M p.145L, he appears confident in the name. It is the ‘post office Palazzo Cavalli’. At Notebook M p.200 Ruskin lists Sheet No. 155 at the top of the page, and that indeed seems its proper place in the sequence of Sheets referred to in M. Making a note at the top of the page of the Sheet with which he is concerned is his usual procedure. Unusually here, however, he makes no further comment on it beyond the reference on the preceding page comparing its bases with those of St. Mark’s. It seems a reasonable conclusion that Ruskin decided to make use of this sheet to add a note at Notebook M p.145L rather than Notebook M p.200 when he realised its relationship with the Foscari and its significance for the points about tracery he had made at Notebook M p.145. Notebook M p.145L was written at the same time as Notebook M p.200.

Again on the assumption that the Sheets are numbered in chronological sequence, Sheet No. 155 can plausibly be dated to the same time as the sequence of pages Notebook M2 pp.80-85. There are references on those pages to Sheet No. 152 and to Sheet Nos. 150, 153 and 159 [n/a]. Notebook M2 p.80 refers to Notebook M p.199, the only page apart from Notebook M p.145L which has an unequivocal reference to the post office Palazzo Cavalli, and a reference to Sheet No. 147 [n/a], which is assumed to come before Sheet No. 155 which gives details of the post office Palazzo Cavalli.

Another fact which may support the view that Notebook M p.145L dates from much the same time as Notebook M2 p.80 is the reference at Notebook M p.145L to the ‘French Book’ as a source of information about the Cavalli and Foscari palaces. The only other references to the French Book are at Notebook M2 p.77 and Notebook M2 p.78, and in each case it is certain that Ruskin was referring to the book he elsewhere called N, a book which contains substantial notes written in France. At Notebook M p.145L he refers to the Palazzo Cavalli, according to Notebook M2 p.70 a building he had seen on his way to the Palazzo Falier. Notebook M2 p.77 and Notebook M2 p.78 are concerned with buildings beyond the Palazzo Falier and Apostoli Church at the Salizada del Pistor and the Fondamenta San Felice.

The conclusion is that on a walk towards the Palazzo Falier near the Apostoli reported at Notebook M2 p.70 Ruskin noticed the tracery on a building tentatively identified as the Palazzo Cavalli, a building he had mentioned in Notebook N. The pages from Notebook M2 p.76 to Notebook M2 p.78 are concerned with buildings ‘between the church of the Apostoli and Jesuiti’. While Ruskin was working in that area he confirmed the identification of the Palazzo Cavalli, produced Sheet No. 155 giving details of it, and noted at Notebook M p.145L its relevance to the Foscari tracery and at Notebook M p.199 its relevance to bases at St.Marks. The reference to Notebook M p.199 at Notebook M2 p.80 proves that Notebook M p.199 was written before, though not necessarily long before, Notebook M2 p.80.

At Notebook M p.197L Ruskin wrote that Sheet No. 134 was based on information collected on February 24th 1850. All these references, including the first tentative reference at Notebook M2 p.70 to the Cavalli with a question mark which is linked with Sheet Nos. 137 and 138 [n/a], therefore date from after that Sunday. It seems to follow that Ruskin did not become seriously interested in the Palazzo Cavalli near the post office until he was nearly at the end of his stay. By that time he had already established his use of the term Palazzo Cavalli without qualification for the Palazzo Franchetti-Cavalli-Gussoni, the Palazzo Cavalli ‘opposite the Academy of Arts’, a more noticeable if less interesting building.

[Version 0.05: May 2008]