“The mountain amphitheatre / That rose around us far and near / . . . / Another ruinʼd universe” (MS VIII; Poems [1891]; Works [1903])— Chiavenna was the first town at which the Ruskins arrived following their eight‐hour descent from the summit of the Splügen Pass (Diary of Mary Richardson, 1833, 41). This poem represents, therefore, the extant draft likeliest to have made a start on the section named “Italia, Italia” in Plan for Continuation of the “Account”.

In the Plan for Continuation of the “Account”, “Italia, Italia” closes a cluster of sections about crossing the mountains into Italy:

• “Passing the Alps”, for which the poem “Passing the Alps” is extant in MS IA, g.2;
• “Via Mala”, for which the poem “Via Mala” is extant in MS VIII;
• “Splugen”, for which the poem “Splugen” is extant in MS VIII;
• “The Summit”, for which the poem “The Summit” is extant in MS VIII;
• “The Descent”, for which the poem “The Descent” is extant in MS VIII;
• “Italia, Italia”.

Presumably, Ruskin may have meant “Italia, Italia” to function similarly to the poem “Italy” in Samuel Rogersʼs Italy. Rogers places “Italy” between two sets of poems—one set about the Italian lakes region (“Como” and “Bergamo”), and the second about Venice (beginning with “CollʼAlto” and “Venice”). Ruskin departs from Rogersʼs sequence, not in broad contours, but in placing his poems about the Italian lakes after “Italia, Italia”, rather than before that greeting to Italy. See also Sources and Influences—Rogersʼs Poetry.

Rogers begins Italy by posing the rhetorical question, “Am I in Italy?”, a question that the narrator excitedly pursues with “Surprise, and doubt, and self‐congratulation”. Italy itself answers the narratorʼs mixed emotions as an oxymoron, a beautiful ruin—a place fallen into ruin because of its beauty:

Similarly, Ruskin hails the warmth and exotic vegetation of Italy, which he contrasts with the “ruinʼd universe” of the mountainside they have left behind (see “The Descent” and associated glosses). In this trope, Ruskin extends beyond Rogersʼs historical reference to the Sack of Rome, however, to suggest the Evangelical emphasis on the ruin of all Creation.

Chiavenna itself answered handsomely to this trope of tempting beauty, “the mountains preserv[ing] it from the northern winds, and render[ing] the climate very warm”, enabling the production of a wine that was “in much request”, according to Ebel (Travellerʼs Guide through Switzerland, 332). John Murray III remarks that, while Chiavenna offered “very little . . . to interest the passing traveller”, the town was “picturesque” and “charmingly situated close under the mountains, which appear to impend over it”, yet lying “under an Italian sun, surrounded by hills clothed with the richest vegetation, with vines, figs, and pomegranates” (Hand‐book for Travellers in Switzerland, 211).

Arrival in Chiavenna could also signal a first encounter with the classical world, as Mariana Starke emphasizes in an 1833 guidebook. Discussing the Alpine passes in the time of anicent Rome, Starke writes: “There were . . . two ancient roads over the Rhaetian Alps, which opened a communication between Curia (the modern Coire) and Milan. The one traversed Splugen, the other Mont Septimer, and both met at Clavenna, now Chiavenna. . . . One of these mountain‐passes led from Coire on the Rhine (anciently called Rhenus) to Lapidaria on the same river; and thence to Cuneus Aureus, now denominated Splugen. From Splugen the road was carried on to . . . Clavenna, now Chiavenna, and Comum, now Como. The last was a Greek Colony, . . . subsequently re‐colonised by Julius Caesar (Travels in Europe, 297).