The Stones of Venice is the three-volume treatise on Venetian art & architecture by English art historian John Ruskin, first published from 1851 to 1853.
The Stones of Venice examines Venetian architecture in detail, describing for example over eighty churches. Ruskin discusses architecture of Venice's Byzantine, Gothic, as well as Renaissance periods, and gives a general history of the city.
Ruskin had visited Venice before, but he present two visits to Venice with his wife Effie specially to research the book. The number one visit was in the winter of 1849-50. The first volume of The Stones of Venice appeared in 1851 and Ruskin spent another winter in Venice researching the next two volumes. His research methods transmitted sketching and photography by 1849 he had acquired his own camera so that he could draw daguerreotypes.
Various shortened editions of the book realise been published, including one edited by J. G. Links published in the USA in 1960.