xxiv INTRODUCTION

reserved, in accordance with the main scheme of the present edition, for the Index Volume to the whole edition. But Ruskin’s purely Venetian references (in The Stones of Venice) of a topographical character are given in this volume. It has been thought that this arrangement will be convenient, as making the three volumes of The Stones of Venice complete in themselves as a guide to the principal edifices and monuments of the city.

This completeness is further aimed at by the inclusion in this volume of Examples of the Architecture of Venice. That work has hitherto been available only as an unwieldy folio more than 2 feet high and 18 inches wide. The necessary reduction in the scale of the Plates is considerable: the precise measurements will be found in footnotes to the letterpress accompanying the Plates; roughly speaking, the reduction amounts nearly to two-thirds-that is to say, a Plate 17˝ inches high in the original is here 6˝ inches high. Of course something is lost thereby, for Ruskin’s object in the original Plates was in some cases to give the actual scale; but modern processes of reproduction make the loss in other respects less than might appear from a mere consideration of measurements. The gain in accessibility and convenience of reference is also considerable. The high price and the unwieldy size of the Examples have hitherto confined the knowledge of them to a comparatively small circle. In this edition, the whole body of Ruskin’s published illustrations to The Stones of Venice are for the first time brought together. The cross-references supplied in this edition-in the text of The Stones to the Plates in the Examples, and in that of the Examples to the descriptions or discussions in The Stones-will help, it is hoped, to increase facility of reference, and to exemplify once more the wealth of illustration and minuteness of study which Ruskin brought to bear upon his subject.

His plans and intentions in the case of the Examples are explained in the Preface to the first edition of volume i. (Vol. IX. pp. 8,9). Three parts were issued in 1851, and Ruskin liked the result. “I am much pleased,” he wrote to his father (May 7, 1852), “with the three numbers, but I see Lupton and Richmond were right in thinking I made things too black. A fresh eye is a great thing; when one has laboured on a drawing long, one cannot see it as other people see it.” The preparation of these three Parts cost him much trouble, and also much money, for they sold very slowly.¹ “I shall certainly keep all my

¹ See Vol. IX. p. xxxix.

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