John Ruskin - “The Quarry”
John Ruskin critiques the dynamics that underwrote Venice’s inexorable debility: “I would endeavour to trace the lines of this image before it be for ever lost, and to record, as far as I may, the warning which seems to me to be uttered by every one of the fast-gaining waves, that beat, like passing bells, against the Stones of Venice.” John Ruskin critically tracks and elucidates Venice’s eminence and degeneration.
Foscari - “The Quarry”
Foscari was a legendary, memorable Venetian doge. John Ruskin writes, “Now, the architect who built under Foscari, in 1424 (remember my date for the decline of Venice, 1418), was obliged to follow the principal forms of the older palace. But he had not the wit to invent new capitals in the same style; he therefore clumsily copied the old ones.” Foscari’s directives steered the architect’s frame of the palace.
John Bellini - “The Quarry”
He is among Venice’s ‘sacred painters’ whose masterpieces integrate religious elements.
Titian - “The Quarry”
He is a Venetian painter who validates formalism. His paintings do not incorporate religious subjects.
Clement V - “The Quarry”
Clement V is a religious persona who “excommunicated the Venetians and their doge, likening them to Dathan, Abiram, Absalom, and Lucifer, is a stronger evidence of the great tendencies of the Venetian government than the umbrella of the doge or the ring of the Adriatic.” The excommunications illustrate the causative agency of religion in Venice’s deterioration.
William of Sens - “The Virtues of Architecture”
John Ruskin asks: “Did the reader ever hear of William of Sens as having had anything to do with Canterbury Cathedral?” William of Sens input to the actuality of Canterbury Cathedral is extensive.
Pietro Basegio - “The Virtues of Architecture”
Ruskin wonders, “Pietro Basegio as in anywise connected with the Ducal Palace of Venice?” Ruskin acclaims Pietro Basegio’s involvement in the actualization of the Ducal Palace.
