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The aim of the project is to produce a scholarly edition and transcription accessible on the internet of the important manuscript materials and working drawings produced by Ruskin in his research for The Stones of Venice in 1849-1850. The majority of these materials are currently held in the Ruskin Library at Lancaster. They include several notebooks, of which that called ‘M’ by Ruskin is the most comprehensive and is indexed by Ruskin; sheets numbered by Ruskin and cross-referenced to ‘M’, and a collection of miscellaneous fragments of drawings. Two other notebooks not in the collection at Lancaster have also been utilized. These are Notebook M2 which is in the collection of the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University, USA and Verona Book held at the Ruskin Museum Coniston, Cumbria. Much of the material is about Venice itself but there are relevant materials produced on the journey to and from Venice.
This edition of Ruskin’s Venetian notebooks aims to make available to Ruskin scholars and others with an interest in nineteenth-century Venice and cultural and architectural history, a resource for understanding Ruskin’s work and working practices. The project has been able to draw upon a rich range of materials particularly within the Ruskin Library at Lancaster and the research team’s prior experience through the successful launch in July 2002 of the Ruskin Programme, Leverhulme Trust hypertext edition of Modern Painters Vol 1. The Venetian notebooks have never been published except in small selected quotation and few of the thousands of images have been reproduced in accessible form. As yet there has been no in-depth analysis of the large central notebook, ‘M’ and its relationship with a number of smaller ‘field’ notebooks and sheets produced during Ruskin’s research visit in 1849-1850, and used by him for The Stones of Venice (1851-53). Robert Hewison’s book and catalogue Ruskin and Venice (1978) presents an important description and introduction to the material along with some speculation concerning Ruskin’s working method. John Unrau’s Ruskin and St. Marks (1984) makes some use of the materials on St. Mark’s. James Dearden’s book on the history of the collection, Ruskin Bembridge and Brantwood (1994) is valuable in documenting the acquisition of the Venetian materials. Since then little detailed scholarly attention has been paid to these important manuscript materials.
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[Version 0.05: May 2008]