I. THE QUARRY 55

capital. Fortitude tears open a lion’s jaws; Faith lays her hand on her breast, as she beholds the Cross; and Hope is praying, while above her hand is seen emerging from sunbeams-the hand of God (according to that of Revelations, “The Lord God giveth them light”¹); and the inscription above is, “Spes optima in Deo.”²

§ 48. This design, then, is, rudely and with imperfect chiselling, imitated by the fifteenth century workmen; the Virtues have lost their hard features and living expression; they have now all got Roman noses, and have had their hair curled. Their actions and emblems are, however, preserved until we come to Hope; she is still praying, but she is praying to the sun only; The hand of God is gone.

Is not this a curious and striking type of the spirit which had then become dominant in the world, forgetting to see God’s hand in the light He gave; so that in the issue, when that light opened into the Reformation on the one side, and into full knowledge of ancient literature on the other, the one was arrested and the other perverted?

§ 49. Such is the nature of the accidental evidence on which I shall depend for the proof of the inferiority of character in the Renaissance workmen. But the proof of the inferiority of the work itself is not so easy, for in this I have to appeal to judgments which the Renaissance work has itself distorted. I felt this difficulty very forcibly as I read a slight review of my former work, The Seven Lamps, in The Architect: the writer noticed my constant praise of St. Mark’s: “Mr. Ruskin thinks it a very beautiful building! We,” said the Architect, “think it a very ugly building.”³ I was not surprised at the difference of opinion, but at the thing being

¹ [Revelation xxii. 5.]

² [This is a mistake. The inscription over Faith is “Fides optima in Deo” (see next volume, ch. viii. § 78); that over Hope is “Spe. habe in DNo” (Domino).]

³ [The passage referred to is as follows:-“Mr. Ruskin alludes to the west front of St. Mark’s at Venice, which in its ‘proportions’ and ‘colour’ is ‘as lovely a dream as ever filled the human imagination.’ To us it is a very un-lovely nightmare. Like Mr. Woods (whom Mr. Ruskin quotes) we think it extremely ugly” (The Architect and Building Operative, Jan. 3, 1850). Ruskin’s praise of St. Mark’s is quoted from Seven Lamps, ch. v. § 14 (Vol. VIII. p. 206). The critique in the Architect was one of a series (not “slight” in length at any rate) of “Comments on Ruskin’s

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