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The Stones of Venice,Volume III - The Fall
"More than simply a survey of an ancient city's most significant buildings, The Stones of Venice¿first published in three volumes between 1851 and 1853¿is an expression of a philosophy of art, nature, and morality that goes beyond art history, and has inspired such thinkers as Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, and Mahatma Gandhi. Volume III, which looks at Venetian buildings of the Early, Roman, and ¿grotesque¿ Renaissance, provides an analysis of the transitional forms of Arabian and Byzantine architecture while tracing the city¿s spiritual and architectural decline. Unabridged, and containing Ruskin¿s original drawings, this guide to the moral, spiritual, and aesthetic implications of architecture is a treasure for students and scholars alike. The preeminent art critic of his time, British writer JOHN RUSKIN (1819¿1900) had a profound influence upon European painting, architecture, and aesthetics of the 19th and 20th centuries. His immense body of literary works include Modern Painters, Volume I¿IV (1843¿1856); The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849); Unto This Last (1862); Munera Pulveris (1862¿3); The Crown of Wild Olive (1866); Time and Tide (1867); and Fors Clavigera (1871-84)."
- GenresHistoryArchitecture
528 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1886
About the author
John Ruskin
3,936 books503 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
John Ruskin was an English writer, philosopher, art historian, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy.
Ruskin was heavily engaged by the work of Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc which he taught to all his pupils including William Morris, notably Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionary, which he considered as "the only book of any value on architecture". Ruskin's writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. He wrote essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, architectural structures and ornamentation. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art gave way in time to plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society.
Ruskin was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an extended essay in defence of the work of J.M.W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of the artist is "truth to nature". From the 1850s, he championed the Pre-Raphaelites, who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862) marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain", published under the title Fors Clavigera (1871–1884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today.
John Ruskin was an English writer, philosopher, art historian, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and political economy.
Ruskin was heavily engaged by the work of Eugène-Emmanuel Viollet-le-Duc which he taught to all his pupils including William Morris, notably Viollet-le-Duc's Dictionary, which he considered as "the only book of any value on architecture". Ruskin's writing styles and literary forms were equally varied. He wrote essays and treatises, poetry and lectures, travel guides and manuals, letters and even a fairy tale. He also made detailed sketches and paintings of rocks, plants, birds, landscapes, architectural structures and ornamentation. The elaborate style that characterised his earliest writing on art gave way in time to plainer language designed to communicate his ideas more effectively. In all of his writing, he emphasised the connections between nature, art and society.
Ruskin was hugely influential in the latter half of the 19th century and up to the First World War. After a period of relative decline, his reputation has steadily improved since the 1960s with the publication of numerous academic studies of his work. Today, his ideas and concerns are widely recognised as having anticipated interest in environmentalism, sustainability and craft.
Ruskin first came to widespread attention with the first volume of Modern Painters (1843), an extended essay in defence of the work of J.M.W. Turner in which he argued that the principal role of the artist is "truth to nature". From the 1850s, he championed the Pre-Raphaelites, who were influenced by his ideas. His work increasingly focused on social and political issues. Unto This Last (1860, 1862) marked the shift in emphasis. In 1869, Ruskin became the first Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Oxford, where he established the Ruskin School of Drawing. In 1871, he began his monthly "letters to the workmen and labourers of Great Britain", published under the title Fors Clavigera (1871–1884). In the course of this complex and deeply personal work, he developed the principles underlying his ideal society. As a result, he founded the Guild of St George, an organisation that endures today.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 3, 2025
I learned much from the first two volumes of The Stones of Venice, but nothing from this third volume. Ruskin has decided to spare the reader the details or any illustrations of a style he considers “vile” and “immoral”, that is to say the Renaissance, and instead edify us with his opinions on religion, with digressions on education and various other subjects having little if any connection with architecture or Venice. If I hadn’t invested the time to read the first two volumes, I probably wouldn’t have finished this one.
The text is divided into four chapters. The first chapter, entitled “The Early Renaissance”, tells us that the Late Gothic style degenerated into over-ornamentation and as a reaction the architects returned to an imitation of the earlier Byzantine style. I don’t mean to say he describes this or elaborates on it; the previous sentence is all the architectural content of the chapter, the rest is just religion. The second chapter is entitled “The Roman Renaissance”, in which the architects imitate “pagan” architecture; again no actual description. The third chapter is called “The Grotesque Renaissance”, in which the Renaissance style itself degenerates. The only architectural feature mentioned is a single ugly head which he gives as an illustration; the rest is a general theory of the “grotesque” with no reference to actual examples. The fourth chapter is called “Conclusion” and is just a miscellaneous rehashing of the religious discussion of the first three chapters and an argument that modern architecture is entirely bad and should be replaced by a return to the Gothic. In the later edition, he adds a fifth chapter called “Castel-Franco” after a painting by Tintoretto which is mentioned in two or three sentences; this is basically another miscellaneous chapter with the same content as the “Conclusion”.
If this seems like I am exaggerating, I will quote from his own description of what The Stones of Venice is about:
“The advent of Christianity for the first time rendered possible the full development of the soul of man, and therefore the full development of the arts of man.
“Christianity gave birth to a new architecture, not only immeasurably superior to all that had preceded it, but demonstrably the best architecture that can exist; perfect in construction and decoration, and fit for the practice of all time.
“This architecture, commonly called “Gothic”, though in conception perfect, like the theory of a Christian character, never reached an actual perfection, having been retarded and corrupted by various adverse influences; but it reached its highest perfection, hitherto manifested, about the close of the thirteenth century, being then indicative of a peculiar energy in the Christian mind of Europe.
“In the course of the fifteenth century . . . the Christianity of Europe was undermined; and a Pagan architecture was introduced, in imitation of that of the Greeks and Romans.
“The architecture of the Greeks and Romans themselves was not good, but it was natural . . . , good in some respects and for a particular time.
“But the imitative architecture introduced first in the fifteenth century, and practised ever since, was neither good nor natural. It was good in no respect, and for no time. All the architects who have built in that style have built what was worthless, and therefore the greater part of the architecture which has been built for the last three hundred years, and which we are now building, is worthless. We must give up this style totally, despise it and forget it, and build henceforward only in that perfect and Christian style hitherto called Gothic, which is everlastingly the best.
“This is the theorem of these volumes.”
About half-way through I realized who he reminded me of: William F. Buckley, Jr. The Appendix VII in particular could have been called “God and Man at Oxford”. If you are old enough to remember Buckley, you know all you need to know about Ruskin in the text of this volume.
I say “in the text” because he follows it with an 82 page “Index” giving the principle buildings of Venice in alphabetical order with comments on the architectural features of interest and the sculptures, and especially the paintings, which they contain; this travel guide was the only partially redeeming feature of the book, although it can give the impression that Tintorello was the only painter in Renaissance Venice. There is a very long ordinary index to the three volumes; there is no bibliography.
The text is divided into four chapters. The first chapter, entitled “The Early Renaissance”, tells us that the Late Gothic style degenerated into over-ornamentation and as a reaction the architects returned to an imitation of the earlier Byzantine style. I don’t mean to say he describes this or elaborates on it; the previous sentence is all the architectural content of the chapter, the rest is just religion. The second chapter is entitled “The Roman Renaissance”, in which the architects imitate “pagan” architecture; again no actual description. The third chapter is called “The Grotesque Renaissance”, in which the Renaissance style itself degenerates. The only architectural feature mentioned is a single ugly head which he gives as an illustration; the rest is a general theory of the “grotesque” with no reference to actual examples. The fourth chapter is called “Conclusion” and is just a miscellaneous rehashing of the religious discussion of the first three chapters and an argument that modern architecture is entirely bad and should be replaced by a return to the Gothic. In the later edition, he adds a fifth chapter called “Castel-Franco” after a painting by Tintoretto which is mentioned in two or three sentences; this is basically another miscellaneous chapter with the same content as the “Conclusion”.
If this seems like I am exaggerating, I will quote from his own description of what The Stones of Venice is about:
“The advent of Christianity for the first time rendered possible the full development of the soul of man, and therefore the full development of the arts of man.
“Christianity gave birth to a new architecture, not only immeasurably superior to all that had preceded it, but demonstrably the best architecture that can exist; perfect in construction and decoration, and fit for the practice of all time.
“This architecture, commonly called “Gothic”, though in conception perfect, like the theory of a Christian character, never reached an actual perfection, having been retarded and corrupted by various adverse influences; but it reached its highest perfection, hitherto manifested, about the close of the thirteenth century, being then indicative of a peculiar energy in the Christian mind of Europe.
“In the course of the fifteenth century . . . the Christianity of Europe was undermined; and a Pagan architecture was introduced, in imitation of that of the Greeks and Romans.
“The architecture of the Greeks and Romans themselves was not good, but it was natural . . . , good in some respects and for a particular time.
“But the imitative architecture introduced first in the fifteenth century, and practised ever since, was neither good nor natural. It was good in no respect, and for no time. All the architects who have built in that style have built what was worthless, and therefore the greater part of the architecture which has been built for the last three hundred years, and which we are now building, is worthless. We must give up this style totally, despise it and forget it, and build henceforward only in that perfect and Christian style hitherto called Gothic, which is everlastingly the best.
“This is the theorem of these volumes.”
About half-way through I realized who he reminded me of: William F. Buckley, Jr. The Appendix VII in particular could have been called “God and Man at Oxford”. If you are old enough to remember Buckley, you know all you need to know about Ruskin in the text of this volume.
I say “in the text” because he follows it with an 82 page “Index” giving the principle buildings of Venice in alphabetical order with comments on the architectural features of interest and the sculptures, and especially the paintings, which they contain; this travel guide was the only partially redeeming feature of the book, although it can give the impression that Tintorello was the only painter in Renaissance Venice. There is a very long ordinary index to the three volumes; there is no bibliography.
September 29, 2019
The last volume in this famous trilogy, John Ruskin offers his most subjective assessment of Venetian architecture yet. With a critical approach typical of the Victorian Period, one will receive an excessive amount of postulating, hyperbole, and florid prose, but the result is still an extremely important and gorgeously written example of exceptional writing on architecture.
October 17, 2015
If you're going to read just one book before visiting Venice, find something else, for this three volume set is far too long and should be read slowly. You'll be amazed how little you knew about architecture, how interesting it is from basic wall to intricacy of ornament, and how much and how well the oft tendentious Ruskin, a quirky fellow, wrote about it. 19th Century England was the time and place for enormous epics.
December 24, 2014
Much more limited than the first two volumes and, to me, much less interesting. This volume (The Decline) is merely a run down on the degradation of Venetian architecture that coincided with the introduction of Renaissance architecture and the decline of the city on the world stage. Some interesting points but not enough. You are better off rereading one of the first two volumes.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews