Change Over Time

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Figure 1.

Venice, Punta della Dogana and Salute Church seen from Saint Mark’s bell tower, photo, end of ninteenth century. (Credit: Venezia, Archivio IRE, Fondo fotografico Tomaso Filippi, @IRE–Fondo Filippi)

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After many centuries of glorious past, at the end of the nineteenth century, Venice was declining both economically and socially. It was dominated by Napoleon and the Austrian Empire, only becoming part of the Kingdom of Italy in 1866.¹ Nevertheless, even if it was no longer as magnificent as it had once been, Venice in the nineteenth century was a culturally vibrant and stimulating city (Fig. 1). In Italian academic literature, the urban and architectural works undertaken under the Napoleonic domination have usually been considered in a positive, even enthusiastic, light, although the essence of the city changed dramatically as a result.

Among other changes, the most famous works concerned the creation of the Giardini, which now host the Biennale, and the transformation of Piazza San Marco. Indeed, in the middle of the Piazza, there had been a Renaissance church by Jacopo Sansovino, which was destroyed in 1807 to make space for new paving and the so-called ala napoleonica (Napoleonic wing), a structure that connected the old Procuratie with the new ones and currently functions as the entrance of the Correr Museum.

Massive restorations were carried out in Saint Mark’s Basilica—I will return to this later in this paper—and many other Venetian buildings. On that subject, Gianfranco Pertot has recently published a synthesis of the numerous urban and restoration works that took place in Venice during the nineteenth century. We can find it in the second edition of his book written in Italian in 1988, accurately revised for English translation, with addenda of pictures by Sarah Quill. Furthermore, in his useful Ruskin and St. Mark’s (Thames & Hudson, 1981), John Unrau set the focus on the restoration of Saint Mark’s Basilica and on the intervention of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB), which was established in the 1870s and was strongly supported by William Morris and John Ruskin.² [End Page 25]

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Figure 2.

Venice, Canal Grande, Palazzo Loredan, photo, end of nineteenth century. (Credit: Venezia, Archivio IRE, Fondo fotografico Tomaso Filippi, @IRE–Fondo Filippi)

The main topic of the present article is to highlight one crucial aspect of the influence of Ruskin on the cultural context of nineteenth-century Venice, namely his relationship with the most famous of his Italian pupils: the architect and archaeologist Giacomo Boni.³ Boni started as a construction site worker at the age of fourteen in 1873, when his father died. Sensitive both in the debate on restoration and its techniques, Boni was among Ruskin’s pupils beginning in his youth. He had greater chance of making his Maestro’s thought known to a wider audience, and of challenging himself with Ruskin’s teachings.

In his early days on construction sites, Boni took part in two important and discussed restoration projects: Palazzo Loredan (currently, together with Ca’ Farsetti, a branch of the Municipality of Venice) (Fig. 2), and Fondaco dei Turchi (currently the Museum of Natural History) (Fig. 3). This latter restoration especially was strongly disputed, because there Ruskin’s noninvasive restoration method clashed with the idealistic reconstruction on a supposed philological base derived from France and Viollet-le-Duc’s theories (Fig. 4).⁴ [End Page 26]

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Figure 3.

Venice, Museo civico, palazzo Pesaro called “Fondaco dei Turchi,” before restoration, photo, middle of the nineteenth century. (Credit: Venezia, Archivio IRE, Fondo fotografico Tomaso Filippi, @IRE–Fondo Filippi)

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Figure 4.

Venice, Canal Grande, “Fondaco dei Turchi,” after restoration, photo, end of the nineteenth century. (Credit: Venezia, Archivio IRE, Fondo fotografico Tomaso Filippi, @IRE–Fondo Filippi)

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In 1879, Boni became the assistant of architect Annibale Forcellini, who was in charge of the restoration of Palazzo Ducale (Fig. 5). The project was strongly influenced by the previous and the contemporary restorations of the south façade of Saint Mark’s Basilica. The north façade had been strongly compromised in its continuous historical and artistic stratification (from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century) due to substitutions of capitals, columns, and covering marbles, while the original ones were sold to tourists. Ruskin himself wrote:

To my bitter sorrow, [I] was able to hold in my hand, and show to my scholars, pieces of the white and purple veined alabasters, more than a foot square, bought here in Venice out of the wreck of restoration.

The quotation is taken from the preface that the English writer wrote for a pamphlet published in 1877 by Alvise Piero Zorzi, a count and heir of a family that, together with few others, could boast of several dogi among its forefathers. This short book condemned the restoration project and works led by Meduna on the north façade of Saint Mark’s Basilica, and criticized the ones on the south elevation, in the hope of contributing to a preservation of the main façade of the building. Ruskin sponsored the publication of the pamphlet because he was asked to do so by a representative of the glorious Venetian patriziato, as he himself explains:

In this effort of yours, the first, as far I know, made with earnestness and on basis of sure knowledge, to show the error of our modern systems of reconstruction, I recognise indeed the revival of the spirit of the Past; the spirit of reverence for the great Dead,—of love for the places which their fame illumined, and their virtue hallowed, and of care for all things which once they had care for, which their living eyes beheld, and on which yet perhaps, they look sometimes back with unchanged affection. In this I indeed acknowledge the heart of the Venetian noble,—what emotion so strongly moved the lords of ancient Venice, as their reverence for the Dead! How much also, may I thank you for permitting me to be your companion in this noble enterprise?⁵

Moreover, he was happy to take part in the fight against the umpteenth attempt at “modernization” that he strongly condemned as the origin of the corruption of arts and societies, especially because it involved Venice, one of the most important cities for the Romantics’ collective imagination:

While therefore, it is impossible to speak with too much sorrow of the destruction brought upon St Mark’s, it must always be kept in mind that this is not the fault of the Venetian workman, but of the modern system by which, throughout Europe the money profit resulting from the extensive employment of mechanical labour, becomes a motive for persons who have no real art-faculty to occupy themselves in [End Page 28] the direction of imitative work, for which, of course no genius in design required. Thus the nations are made to pay for the ruin of their ancient monuments; instead of imitative work.⁶

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Figure 5.

Venice (VE), Saint Mark’s piazzetta and Ducal Palace at night, photo, end of the nineteenth century. (Credit: Venezia, Archivio IRE, Fondo fotografico Tomaso Filippi, @IRE–Fondo Filippi)

This text is particularly important because Ruskin’s preface was published both in English and Italian. It was one of the first translations of Ruskin’s thought, and marked an important moment as the English language was not that commonly read and understood in Venice at the time. Hence, Ruskin’s thoughts on restoration quickly spread in the Italian culture through some aphorisms such as the prohibition to restore a ruin:

I venture partly to answer the question which will occur to the readers whom you convince,—what means of preservation ought to be used for a building which it is impossible to restore. The single principle is, that after any operation whatsoever necessary for the safety of the building, every external stone should be set back in its actual place: if any are added to strengthen the walls, the new stones, instead of being made to resemble the old ones, should be left blank of sculpture, and every one have the date of its insertion engraved upon it.⁷ [End Page 29]

Giacomo Boni took active part in the harsh debate that followed the publication of Zorzi’s pamphlet. In those years, he had met the painter John Bunney, thanks to Angelo Alessandri, who was himself a pupil of John Ruskin. They were both working on paintings of views and details of Saint Mark’s Basilica for Ruskin. Bunney’s wife took care of Boni’s education and taught him English. That is why, in 1879, he started to cooperate actively with the debate on restoration, translating journal articles for the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. The Society, indeed, had been established in those years and was committed to the fight against St. Mark’s restoration. The collaboration led Boni to make friends with William Morris and later allowed him to become member of the Royal Institute of British Architects (1884). In 1880, Boni enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice. In 1881, his life changed completely, as he started his correspondence with both John Ruskin and William D. Caröe.⁸

The first letters of twenty-two-year-old Giacomo Boni, which are still preserved, are directed to the English architect. There, Boni was called “Maestro di Palazzo Ducale,” the English community indeed took him as a referee on restorations occurring in Saint Mark’s area. This is clear even in the first letter (March 14, 1881):

You and your friends would wish to know in unmistakable words what has to be done in St. Mark in connection with past and present restorations. Let me tell you how things proceeded. Beg you to excuse my faults [sic] and correct them in case you will publish something of my own; which you are perfectly free of doing.⁹

The most interesting topics for him were the stabilization of the Basilica’s mosaics, the quality of the paints used to restore the building (usually responsible for alterations of the colors), and finally the sacking of its marbles. After the harsh debate and the polemics on Saint Mark’s restoration, there was plenty of work to be done about restoration—both in theory and in practice. Hence, Boni was busy with both these aspects.

In August 1881, he was clearly thinking about making a public stand and was looking for alliances, albeit to no avail:

I have recovered just now from a sort of abatement [sic]; partly a physical; partly coming from two months of permanent nervous excitation; no friends to help me in defending myself when preparing attacks.¹⁰

Boni had some precise ideas about the most important theoretical contents of the debate: he was probably thinking of writing something about the polemics concerning the link between south and west façades of Saint Mark’s Basilica:

Of the opportunity of doing the present work and the way in which it should be done (altering the new work what we have built ourselves and taking this opportunity to make it say some lies less) I am just treating and have been writing something that, if help comes, may be published very soon.¹¹ [End Page 30]

He was also considering a project that, for a twenty-two-year-old man, was highly ambitious:

A writing on restorations would also be of some utility, I should make known what Ruskin wrote about them and apply Viollet-le-Duc’s theories with comparison (consequences) and conclusion.¹²

It was about one year later that Boni ceased to wonder about the best course of action and went ahead to put his ideas in practice. In May 1882, he told Caröe about a lecture he had given on methods of restoration among a circle of young artists from the Academy of Fine Arts:

A few days ago I gave a lecture on restoration before the choicest artist friends I could get together. All Venetians about 12 of them; we discussed, until everything was understood, and I prayed them to accept the ideas I had put down as their only [sic] in order to raise an interest among the independent artists and make them vigilant in the future. A meeting of all the Venetian artists and those being foreigners who reside here; the committee (the first 12) had the paper read and its being published voted. They print a few copies not to give the Art-Clubs and the best Italian artists; but I have nothing else to do with it; you may understand how many reasons suggested an acting so. This is a beginning; and I should like it were not believed all at once and as easily forgotten; if anything wrong happens it won’t hurt me so much as had things I cannot prevent do.¹³

According to Giacomo Boni’s biographer Eva Tea, the pamphlet was written at Alessandri’s house, and several young artists who became famous later on took part in composing the draft, including Ettore Tito, Giacomo Favretto, and Silvio Giulio Rotta. It was a complex booklet that could be considered a juvenile work. It clearly explains how inadequate the debate concerning theories and works of restoration was at the time in Italy. The pamphlet was a tribute to Ruskin and especially to The Seven Lamps of Architecture, published in 1848:

Mettiamo un principio su cui posare un ragionamento: non crediamo che verun edificio al mondo, di qualunque epoca, di qualsiasi popolo, abbisogni del genere di restauro che demolisce e riedifica. Ogni edificio ha un periodo di vita che ci è dato prolungare indefinitamente colle nostre cure; ma se ne danno alcuni, rarissimi d’altronde, che dalla particolare natura o struttura, materiale, sono trascinati ad inevitabile dissoluzione. In questo caso, ed ove occorra per l’uso e valga la pena di perpetuarlo, se ne eriga in altro luogo un fac-simile, ma si conservi la bella rovina.¹⁴

Let us state a principle about which to ponder: we do not think that any building in the world, from any period, of any people, would need the kind of preservation work [End Page 31] that detroys and rebuilds it. Every building has a life span that we can extend with our care; but some builings exist, albeit very rare, that because of their nature or structure and material are drawn toward inevitable dissolution. In this case—and whenever necessary because of their function and whenever their existence is worth prolonging—an identical building should be erected in another place, as long as a beautiful ruin is preserved. [See the appendix for full text and translation.]

The pamphlet ends with a plea to the curatori dell’antichità, of whom he says, pur essendo mutato l’indirizzo, lo spirito che li guida è sempre lo stesso:

Non dimenticate questo: il valore d’un monumento qualsiasi di una età artistica, inimitabile quindi, che nessun processo di restauro può ridare, che lo stesso artefice originale rivivendo in mezzo a nuove circostanze non ricostruirebbe, può esprimersi con una frazione, che scema ogni qualvolta la necessità, il bisogno, il parere, il capriccio, cancellano taluna delle cifre del numeratore (gli elementi di bellezza che trovansi tuttora al posto ove l’artefice primo li ha collocati) ed ha per denominatore il numero intero di elementi. A questo valore dell’antico aggiungansi i ricordi storici, le memorie patriottiche, l’interesse speciale che ha per l’educazione nostra un monumento e l’obbligo quindi di trasmettere questo retaggio inalterato ai venturi.¹⁵

Do not forget this: the value of any monument of any period—which is not imitable and that no preservation can restore and which the original architect himself, living again in new circumstances, would not rebuild—can be expressed by means of a fraction, the value of which diminishes every time that need, opinion, or whim delete any of the figures of the numerator (including those elements of beauty that are still to be found where the architect first placed them) and has as a denominator the whole integer of elements. To this value of the old, we should add historical recollections, patriotic memories, the special interest that a monument has for our education and the obligation to pass on such heritage unchanged to future generations.

Finally, in this pamphlet, the main cause of the current situation was identified as the lack of a national law “riguardi la conservazione dei monumenti oggetto d’utilità pubblica” (“regarding the conservation of monuments of public importance or utility”), which would have been useful in forbidding private citizens to do whatever they liked with “il grande contingente di patrimonio artistico d’una città.”¹⁶

The pamphlet was published anonymously in May 1882. Giacomo Boni proceeded with caution, but the architect Forcellini easily traced it back to him. He was not helped by an anonymous article that he published in a local newspaper (L’Adriatico) on July 2, 1882, which unwittingly drew attention to himself. He was then fired from his role as Maestro di Palazzo Ducale.

At this time, the mediation and intervention of John Ruskin became crucial. Ruskin [End Page 32] comforted him as his Maestro (a term Ruskin liked to assume), and he encouraged him with the proposal of a job at Oxford, for the first time in a letter on December 18:

My dearest Boni,

I only got your sad letter this morning—and write instantly to assure you that you need not, as long as I live, be under the slightest anxiety as far as your moderate and quiet habits of life may need support in their present simplicity. I am almost happy,—but for the immediate pain to you in the sense I may now employ your genius and lovely gifts of heart and mind, where they will find peaceful and perfect scope of exercise. I pray you to be under no apprehension, as far as money is concerned,—and only to think for yourself in what occupation and at what place, you would be most happy.¹⁷

Boni considered the offer, but he got back his job at Palazzo Ducale, possibly thanks to the intervention of Attilio Cadel, a successful Venetian building contractor who had been Boni’s supervisor when he was a construction site worker. He wrote to Ruskin with the good news; here is Ruskin’s reply:

I am so very thankful to day to have your quieter letter and to see by it that—as I had indeed thought must be the case—some of your Venetians love you and understand, however they may for various reasons oppose or oppress you. As for the “standing point” I can positively assume you of your present income, and of employment by which you will earn it far more pleasurably to yourself, and with infinite service as well as pleasure to me.¹⁸

Meanwhile, Boni continued to play a busy and active part in the cultural life of Venice. He planned to give a lecture on Ruskin’s thought at the Historical Society (Deputazione di Storia Patria). His Maestro gave him carte blanche and also sent him copies of all his books, renewing the invitation to come to Oxford to work with him:

I don’t want to take you from Venice, so long as you can save anything, or discover anything, that you care for, but only understand that the moment you find yourself powerless, too much vexed and insulted—throw up all connection with them and come at once to me—and I will set you to peaceful work after your heart and mine, among people who will love and honor you.¹⁹

Furthermore, on April 29: “and shall feel deeply honored and helped by anything you say of me to the Historical Society—only, please, don’t fatigue or overwork yourself.”²⁰

Boni’s plan is revealed in a letter to Caröe on May 16. However, he was not optimistic about the possible reactions in Venice to his lectures about Ruskin:

I thought of lecturing shortly on Ruskin’s writings on Venice, which are entirely unknown here, and only thought of through the interpretation given by dull tourists [End Page 33] to his more elevated conception and analysis of beauty. I have no hope to make my countrymen understand and love this most elevated analizis [sic], but there are things that are beautiful in themselves, or whose beauty may be pointed out, and my countrymen will feel grateful, I hope, for his having done so.²¹

Boni’s biographer, Tea, reported that the lecture was given on April 30, 1884.²² Yet, earlier on February 17, Ruskin had written to Boni:

There must indeed be some other true Italians in Italy; you must band yourselves together to save her, by your goodness, gentleness, steady labor, and patient hope, through all surrounding folly and violence.²³

There is no trace of this lecture in the archive of the Historical Society, nor is there any trace of it having been published. However, even though we cannot be sure that the conference was actually given, what is certain is that Boni was busy in making Ruskin’s works known to the Venetian public. Indeed, Ruskin commented in a letter on June 6:

I should have much more to say of my pride and pleasure in what you have done for my books and me at Venice. But what is useless at Venice, the city is lost, elsewhere it might be altogether salutary and strong for good.²⁴

These words are taken from the final part of a letter in which Ruskin, still worried about Boni’s physical and mental state, renewed his invitation to come to Oxford to work with him with a proper salary:

I am anxious about you, with the double care of your own friend, and a love of your country. Irrespective of actual violence, and I conceive that quite possible—these men now distinct adversaries of a cancelled in humiliated rage, may torment you into illness, or keep you in laborious poverty till your best strength is past, … my own wish being that you should leave Venice at once and employ yourself silently in carrying on my old work of drawings and measuring what remains in Italy. This I can promise you certainly as much salary as your present one is ever likely to become—and I feel certain that my pupils and friends would continue yours after my death and I trust also that I could put you soon at the head of some good architectural work, with kind and happy workmen under you.²⁵

The preserved letters between the two men stop at this time. Boni probably refused the offer once again. His career was starting and his authority was growing, especially thanks to the support of the Historical Society (Deputazione di Storia Patria delle Venezie). Political pressures, however, did not stop and in 1888, he had to move to the Ministry of the Public Education in Rome. He spent ten years working on restoration projects in the South of Italy. Later, in the 1890s, he was appointed by the minister Guido Baccelli to what was [End Page 34] his most famous role, director of the excavation of the Roman Forum. The story of his career changed completely; he became one of the fathers of contemporary archaeology.

Until recently, Boni’s interest in the discipline of restoration was less well known than his work in restoration and conservation.²⁶ Boni developed this interest because it was strictly linked to the process and internal organization of the offices appointed for the preservation of ancient monuments. Boni’s nature, very different from that of his colleagues in the Ministry, made it impossible for him to work on its internal organization, although he had relatively clear ideas about how it could be made more efficient. Indeed, Boni had no hope that his colleagues’ attitude to the baraondite (chaos) could ever be improved, so much so that he wrote to his Venetian friend Alessandro Rigobon, “Dio salvi l’Italia, anche se dovesse costare il martirio” (“May God save Italy, even at the cost of martyrdom”). These were the prophetic and menacing words he pronounced probably in 1924, when Fascism was growing quickly and with it more violence and chaos for Italy. At that time, he was already a Senator (since 1923), and he died shortly after in 1925.