INTRODUCTION xlv

of Gondo, to its head; the wildest, far-away piece of lovely pastoral I remember. Three or four cottages in the upper cirque of it, so desolate ! and the women and girls, with their goats, all kind and good, but so wretched ! animal-like in rude endurance and thoughtless patience, and no one caring for them.”

And similarly, a few days before (June 6), “this book is full enough of complaints, and would be fuller still, if I could put in words the bitterness of sorrow that comes on me in these lovely places.” Thus, with “the mountain gloom” and “the mountain glory” mingled in his thoughts, Ruskin returned to England and to St. George’s work.

“GIOTTO AND HIS WORKS IN PADUA”

Before proceeding to discuss the Venetian writings of 1876-1877, we must say a few words about the earlier work on Giotto at Padua, which, for reasons of convenience already explained (p. xix.), is included in this volume. The date and the origin of the book should be remembered. Ruskin, as we have seen,¹ was an active member on the Council of the Arundel Society, and was deeply interested in all the Society’s efforts to take records of works of early Italian art. In 1853 the task of depicting Giotto’s frescoes in the Arena Chapel at Padua was taken in hand, Mr. Williams being commsisioned to make drawings of them. The drawings were cut on wood by the brothers Dalziel,² and published at intervals between 1853 and 1860; and with each batch of them, descriptive letterpress by Ruskin was issued. With the first part, issued in 1853, was given Ruskin’s introductory essay (here pp. 13-45). The date is important, for at the time Ruskin had not yet made those more detailed studies of Giotto’s work which have been described in the preceding Introduction; in particular, he had not been to Assisi. He was still at the stage of his critical development in which he attached greater importance to the limitations of the early master than he afterwards came to do.³ Hence there is in his essay a certain note of apology,⁴ which he certainly would not have used had the book been written twenty years later. The Protestant bias, which Ruskin afterwards deplored, is also noticeable in the essay (see, for instance, p. 30). Again, as Ruskin says in the “Advertisement” (here p. 11), he had made no study of Giotto’s life; for historical

¹ Vol. IV. p. xliv.

² See Vol. XIX. p. 149.

³ On this subject see Vol. XXIII. p. xlv.

⁴ See pp. 28, 35, 38.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]