WorkThis watercolour was 'drawn' from a daguerreotype that Ruskin had taken on the spot.
Ruskin on Santa Maria della Spina, PisaRuskin considered Santa Maria della Spina ('Chapel of St Mary of the Thorn'), at Pisa, a well-developed example of the 'second perfect order of Italian Gothic'. This was the point at which the round shapes of 'the Romanesque arcade' were translated into 'pointed work' (
Works, 12, p. 196).
The work is prominently displayed in all three photographs of the extension interior, reflecting its subject's importance as a site evocative of Ruskin's enduring relationship with Italy.
Of his early time in Pisa, Ruskin recalled days spent in the cloister of Campo Santo that would end with him 'getting upon the roof of Santa Maria della Spina, and sitting in the sunlight that transfused the warm marble of its pinnacles, till unabated brightness went down beyond the arches of the Ponte-a-Mare' (
Praeterita, in
Works, 35, p. 358).