Ruskin's Italy

Abstract

In a fragmentary preface to St. Mark's Rest, now in Princeton University's Firestone Library, Ruskin gives a brief history of his Venetian experiences, emphasizing the reading that conditioned his early responses to the city that proved so important to his life and work:My father had trained me well in Shakespeare I knew the Two Gentlemen, & the Merchants of Verona and Venice, better than any gentlemen or merchants in London. had learned most of Romeo and Juliet, by heart; and all the beautiful beginnings of Othello. From Byron though with less reverence, I had received even deeper impressions – nor can I to this day be enough thankful for the glorious ideal of Venetian womanhood and Venetian patriotism which he gave me in Faliero and the Foscari, as I became capable of receiving it in later years Add to these Rogers poems, with Turner Vignettes – and Shelleys Julian & Maddalo, Prouts drawings in the Watercolour Rooms of its Old Society and the list of my first tutors in Venetian work will be full.