John Ruskin‘s correspondence with Angelo Alessandri

Abstract

The extant correspondence between Ruskin and Angelo Alessandri consists of fifty-five letters from Ruskin to Alessandri and drafts of twenty-six letters plus one final version of a letter from Alessandri to Ruskin. With one exception, all these letters and drafts are in the possession of Alessandri's daughter, Signora Maria Pennati Alessandri, who has kindly allowed me to transcribe and quote from them. The only surviving version of an Alessandri letter (letter 77 in my list in Appendix B) is in the Rylands, 1 and I am grateful to the Library for permission to quote from it. 2. Of Ruskin's fifty-five letters, six were published in full or almost in full in the Library Edition. while extracts. usually only a phrase or two. from nine others were used in the General Catalogue of the Ruskin Museum as comments on copies by Alessandri in the collection. 2 Transcripts of most of those published or quoted from. and of twelve other letters, are among the transcripts Alexander Wedderburn gave to the Bodleian in 1936. 3 I do not always agree with the transcriptions, although it is only in a few cases that the sense is altered. None of Alessandri's letters has been published. 3. Alessandri obviously kept Ruskin's letters carefully, and some time after the end of the correspondence placed each letter in a simple paper cover on which he noted the following kinds of information : (i) Either one or two numbers : (a) One series of numbers reflects the overall chronological order of Ruskin's letters and extends from 1 to 55 (there is some confusion in the numeration of a few letters). In the case of thirty letters (which for convenience I call "group A") Alessandri used Arabic numerals, but with twenty-five letters ("group B") he used Roman numerals. Thus the overall chronological sequence runs I, II, 3. 4. 5. 6, VII, VIII etc. (b) In addition, "group B" has its own, self-contained numeration, which runs from l to 24 in Arabic numerals (there are twenty-five letters in this group but two are numbered "24"). (ii) The date of the letter. In "group A" Alessandri gives the dates in Italian. in "group B" in English. Where Ruskin did not date a letter Alessandri always tried to establish a rough date, and usually seems reliable. I have, therefore, accepted his dating where necessary except in one instance: letter l in my list below Alessandri thought was of "Febbraio o Marzo del 1878"-but the letter was clear1y written while Ruskin was in Venice, which he was not in 1878; the letter is c1early, then, of 1877, and I prefer February to March (see above p. 408. and notes 2 and 6). (iii) Occasionally Ruskin's whereabouts at the time of writing. Usually Ruskin used headed notepaper and this was not necessary, but in the few cases in which Ruskin was writing in Venice Alessandri supplies the name of the hotel-the Calcina in 1877, the Europa in 1888. (iv) Alessandri's own whereabouts at the time of receiving the letter. (v) Comments on the contents of the letter. These are often useful in identifying a reference, particularly to a painting or ...