[70] The palace next the Casa Foscari, on the Grand Canal, sometimes said to have belonged to the son of the Doge.
INDICES.
| I. PERSONAL INDEX. II. LOCAL INDEX. | III. TOPICAL INDEX. IV. VENETIAN INDEX. |
The first of the following Indices contains the names of persons; the second those of places (not in Venice) alluded to in the body of the work. The third Index consists of references to the subjects touched upon. In the fourth, called the Venetian Index, I have named every building of importance in the city of Venice itself, or near it; supplying, for the convenience of the traveller, short notices of those to which I had no occasion to allude in the text of the work; and making the whole as complete a guide as I could, with such added directions as I should have given to any private friend visiting the city. As, however, in many cases, the opinions I have expressed differ widely from those usually received; and, in other instances, subjects which may be of much interest to the traveller have not come within the scope of my inquiry; the reader had better take Lazari’s small Guide in his hand also, as he will find in it both the information I have been unable to furnish, and the expression of most of the received opinions upon any subject of art.
Various inconsistencies will be noticed in the manner of indicating the buildings, some being named in Italian, some in English, and some half in one, and half in the other. But these inconsistencies are permitted in order to save trouble, and make the Index more practically useful. For instance, I believe the traveller will generally look for “Mark,” rather than for “Marco,” when he wishes to find the reference to St. Mark’s Church; but I think he will look for Rocco, rather than for Roch, when he is seeking for the account of the Scuola di San Rocco. So also I have altered the character in which the titles of the plates are printed, from the black letter in the first volume, to the plain Roman in the second and third; finding experimentally that the former character was not easily legible, and conceiving that the book would be none the worse for this practical illustration of its own principles, in a daring sacrifice of symmetry to convenience.
These alphabetical Indices will, however, be of little use, unless another, and a very different kind of Index, be arranged in the mind of the reader; an Index explanatory of the principal purposes and contents of the various parts of this essay. It is difficult to analyze the nature of the reluctance with which either a writer or painter takes it upon him to explain the meaning of his own work, even in cases where, without such explanation, it must in a measure remain always disputable: but I am persuaded that this reluctance is, in most instances, carried too far; and that, wherever there really is a serious purpose in a book or a picture, the author does wrong who, either in modesty or vanity (both feelings have their share in producing the dislike of personal interpretation), trusts entirely to the patience and intelligence of the readers or spectators to penetrate into their significance. At all events, I will, as far as possible, spare such trouble with respect to these volumes, by stating here, finally and clearly, both what they intend and what they contain; and this the rather because I have lately noticed, with some surprise, certain reviewers announcing as a discovery, what I thought had lain palpably on the surface of the book, namely, that “if Mr. Ruskin be right, all the architects, and all the architectural teaching of the last three hundred years, must have been wrong.” That is indeed precisely the fact; and the very thing I meant to say, which indeed I thought I had said over and over again. I believe the architects of the last three centuries to have been wrong; wrong without exception; wrong totally, and from the foundation. This is exactly the point I have been endeavoring to prove, from the beginning of this work to the end of it. But as it seems not yet to have been stated clearly enough, I will here try to put my entire theorem into an unmistakable form.