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                      _Library Edition_

                     THE COMPLETE WORKS

                             OF

                         JOHN RUSKIN


                      THE EAGLE'S NEST
                        LOVE'S MEINIE
                     ARIADNE FLORENTINA
                         VAL D'ARNO
                         PROSERPINA


                NATIONAL LIBRARY ASSOCIATION
                NEW YORK             CHICAGO




                     ARIADNE FLORENTINA.


                        SIX LECTURES

                             ON

                  WOOD AND METAL ENGRAVING

                       WITH APPENDIX.


           GIVEN BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,

                  IN MICHAELMAS TERM, 1872.




                         CONTENTS.



                         LECTURE I.
                                                                       PAGE
DEFINITION OF THE ART OF ENGRAVING                                       1


                         LECTURE II.

THE RELATION OF ENGRAVING TO OTHER ARTS IN FLORENCE                     22


                         LECTURE III.

THE TECHNICS OF WOOD ENGRAVING                                          42


                         LECTURE IV.

THE TECHNICS OF METAL ENGRAVING                                         61


                         LECTURE V.

DESIGN IN THE GERMAN SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING (HOLBEIN AND DUeRER)           81


                         LECTURE VI.

DESIGN IN THE FLORENTINE SCHOOLS OF ENGRAVING (SANDRO BOTTICELLI)      108


                         APPENDIX.

ARTICLE
 I. NOTES ON THE PRESENT STATE OF ENGRAVING IN ENGLAND                 143

II. DETACHED NOTES                                                     157




LIST OF PLATES


                                                                Facing Page
Diagram                                                                  27

The Last Furrow (Fig. 2). Facsimile from Holbein's woodcut               47

The Two Preachers (Fig. 3). Facsimile from Holbein's woodcut             48

   I. Things Celestial and Terrestrial, as apparent to the English mind  56

  II. Star of Florence                                                   62

 III. "At evening from the top of Fesole"                                72

  IV. "By the Springs of Parnassus"                                      77

   V. "Heat considered as a Mode of Motion." Florentine Natural
          Philosophy                                                     92

  VI. Fairness of the Sea and Air. In Venice and Athens                  95

      The Child's Bedtime (Fig. 5). Facsimile from Holbein's woodcut    103

      "He that hath ears to hear let him hear" (Fig. 6). Facsimile from
          Holbein's woodcut                                             105

 VII. For a time, and times                                             130

VIII. The Nymph beloved of Apollo (Michael Angelo)                      131

  IX. In the Woods of Ida                                               132

   X. Grass of the Desert                                               135

  XI. "Obediente Domino voci hominis"                                   145

 XII. The Coronation in the Garden                                      158




                     ARIADNE FLORENTINA.




                         LECTURE I.

             DEFINITION OF THE ART OF ENGRAVING.


1. The entrance on my duty for to-day begins the fourth year of my
official work in Oxford; and I doubt not that some of my audience are
asking themselves, very doubtfully--at all events, I ask myself, very
anxiously--what has been done.

For practical result, I have not much to show. I announced, a fortnight
since, that I would meet, the day before yesterday, any gentleman who
wished to attend this course for purposes of study. My class, so minded,
numbers four, of whom three wish to be artists, and ought not therefore,
by rights, to be at Oxford at all; and the fourth is the last remaining
unit of the class I had last year.

2. Yet I neither in this reproach myself, nor, if I could, would I
reproach the students who are not here. I do not reproach myself; for it
was impossible for me to attend properly to the schools and to write the
grammar for them at the same time; and I do not blame the absent
students for not attending a school from which I have generally been
absent myself. In all this, there is much to be mended, but, in true
light, nothing to be regretted.

I say, I had to write my school grammar. These three volumes of lectures
under my hand,[A] contain, carefully set down, the things I want you
first to know. None of my writings are done fluently; the second volume
of "Modern Painters" was all of it written twice--most of it, four
times,--over; and these lectures have been written, I don't know how
many times. You may think that this was done merely in an author's
vanity, not in a tutor's care. To the vanity I plead guilty,--no man is
more intensely vain than I am; but my vanity is set on having it _known_
of me that I am a good master, not in having it _said_ of me that I am a
smooth author. My vanity is never more wounded than in being called a
fine writer, meaning--that nobody need mind what I say.

3. Well, then, besides this vanity, I have some solicitude for your
progress. You may give me credit for it