246 ST. MARK’S REST

letters on, to tell you its subject. Here is St. George indeed!-our own beloved old sign of the George and Dragon, all correct; and, if you know your Seven Champions,¹ Sabra too, on the rock, thrilled witness of the fight. And see what a dainty St. George, too! Here is no mere tailor’s enthronement.² Eques, ipso melior Bellerophonti,³-how he sits!-how he holds his lance!-how brightly youthful the crisp hair under his light cap of helm,-how deftly curled the fringe of his horse’s crest,-how vigorous in disciplined career of accustomed conquest, the two noble living creatures! This is Venetian fifteenth-century work of finest style. Outside-of-house work, of course: we compare at present outside work only, panel with panel: but here are three hundred years of art progress written for you, in two pages,-from early thirteenth to late fifteenth century; and in this little bas-relief is all to be seen, that can be, of elementary principle, in the very crest and pride of Venetian sculpture,-of which note these following points.

49. First, the aspirations of the front of St. Mark’s have been entirely achieved, and though the figure is still symbolical, it is now a symbol consisting in the most literal realization possible of natural facts. That is the way, if you care to see it, that a young knight rode, in 1480, or thereabouts. So, his foot was set in stirrup,-so his body borne,-so trim and true and orderly everything in his harness and his life: and this rendered, observe, with the most consummate precision of artistic touch. Look at the strap of the stirrup,-at the little delicatest line of the spur,-can you think they are stone? don’t they look like

presented a cast for insertion in its original place. A water-colour drawing of it by Ruskin’s friend, Professor Angelo Alessandri, is in the Correr Museum (see p. 31 of the Catalogue of 1899). The editor of the Italian translation of St. Mark’s Rest points out that a very similar bas-relief of the same subject (the date of which is 1508) may be seen on the ancient monastery (now barracks) on the Riva degli Schiavoni.]

¹ [The Famous Historie of the Seaven Champions of Christendome, Saint George of England, etc., by Richard Johnson, first published in 1616. For Sabra, see below, §§ 238, 239, p. 397.]

² [As in the case of the earlier St. George: see § 45, p. 243.]

³ [Horace: Odes, iii. 12, 8.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]