Chapter XVIII: Section III: The Ducal Palace

To turn from the fair temple of the Christian faith in Venice, warm with the affection and the presence of her people, to the empty splendour of the Palace where her secular princes sat in state, is to turn from life to death. If a patrician of the great days were to revive and enter St Mark’s he would find the same hierarchy, the same ritual, the same prayers and praise uttered in the same language to the God he knew. But if he sought to enter the Ducal Palace, the servant of a then petty dynasty would demand a silver coin before he were permitted to ascend the Golden Staircase. There, on steps once trod by those alone whose names were inscribed in the Book of Gold, he would meet a strange company. He would find the great palace of Venice a museum; her millennial power a memory; and the gorgeous halls that once echoed to the voices of the masters of land and sea occupied by a crowd of sightseers, alien in race and creed, gazing curiously at the faded emblems and pictures which tell of her pride, her glory and her imperial state.

The earliest official residence of the Tribunes of Rivoalto was situated by the church of the Holy Apostles near the Rio dei Gesuiti, whose northern mouth is opposite the channel leading to Murano. The remains of this fortified building, which was furnished with a great gate, always kept closed, and a guarded postern, still existed towards the end of the sixteenth century, and then served as a prison. In 820, Doge Angelo Participazio built another feudal-like structure on the site of the present Ducal Palace, near the church of St Theodore. Nothing could be less like the _palazzo fabbricato in aria_ we know to-day. It and the whole of the Piazza, then but a third of its present area, were enclosed by a strong wall with Ghibelline battlements. One of the old towers is incorporated in the masonry, at whose corner now stand the four figures in porphyry referred to on p. 229.

Angelo’s structure was destroyed by fire during the riots which attended the murder of Doge Pietro Candiano in 976. The rebuilding was undertaken by his successor, Pietro Orseolo, and completed towards the end of the eleventh century by Doge Selvo, who adorned the exterior with marble columns and the interior with mosaics. Doge Sebastiano Ziani extended the buildings in the late twelfth century. Early in the fourteenth, the E. portion of the S. façade was begun under the direction it is believed of the chief mason (_Prototaiapiera_), Pietro Basseggio, and in the course of about a century the S. wing was completed and the W. façade carried so far as the boundary of Ziani’s building. About 1365 Doge Marco Cornaro had the walls of the Hall of the Grand Council, the necessity for which had been the chief cause of the new buildings, painted with scenes from the story of the reconciliation of Pope Alexander and the Emperor Barbarossa, and the cornice decorated with portraits of the Doges so arranged that his own came exactly over the ducal chair. The Gothic additions made the simple edifice of Ziani look poor in comparison, and a strong desire was evoked to rebuild the old palace; but the Senate, chary of adding to the public burdens, forbade any member to make such a proposal under a fine of 1000 ducats. In 1419 fire injured the old edifice, and the good Doge Tomaso Mocenigo offered to pay the fine, and thus carried a proposal to rebuild Ziani’s portion of the Palace, which reached from the present Porta della Carta to the sixth arch and seventh column N. of the Adam and Eve angle. The Gothic building was completed between 1424 and 1439, under Doge Francesco Foscari, whose kneeling figure (restored) is carved over the Porta.

The ornate façade on the east side, best seen from a gondola or from the Ponte di Canonico, is by Ant. Riccio, and was erected between 1483 and 1500.

After the great fire of 1577, when the conflagration seemed “like Etna in eruption,” the whole structure narrowly escaped demolition to make place for a new building of Palladian architecture. The strenuous opposition of the architects Giovanni Rusconi and Antonio da Ponte alone saved it. The latter’s plans were accepted and the ruin was repaired and redecorated.

The Bridge of Sighs is a later addition by Ant. Contino, about 1600. It is a commonplace structure, and none but commonplace criminals ever crossed it to their doom.

The brick core of the palace may still be seen in the Cortile and from the Ponte della Paglia, on the eastern façade, where Riccio’s beautiful work ends.

The sculptures at the three free angles, the Drunkenness of Noah, the Adam and Eve, and the Judgment of Solomon are placed S.E., S.W. and N.W. The group of the Judgment of Solomon is by two Tuscan sculptors, Pietro di Nicolo di Firenze and Giov. di Martino da Fiesole.

The S. façade, like the W., is composed of a lower arcade and an upper gallery whose columns support the massive walls of the upper storeys, a daring inversion of architectural tradition which is not wholly satisfying. The marble lozenge-shaped incrustation, however, relieves the heaviness. Indeed, from a fourteenth-century drawing[92] in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, it is possible the upper storeys may have been originally set back.

The squat appearance of the columns of the arcade is due to the raising of the level of the Piazzetta, which in the days when the palace was built was some thirty inches below the present pavement.[93] The original building was approached by a stylobate of three steps which greatly added to its dignity and proportion. Under this arcade the Venetian nobility were accustomed to meet and talk of public affairs, for meetings in their own houses would have roused the suspicion of the Ten. When the patricians, as they paced up and down, raised their eyes to the capitals just above their heads they saw a series of sculptures which for beauty of design, richness of invention and craftsmanship were unsurpassed in Europe. Even to-day, largely renewed as they are, they will repay careful inspection. The subjects are of the usual symbolical types: children, birds, famous emperors and kings, the virtues and sins, the signs of the Zodiac, the crafts, the seven ages of man under celestial influences, the months and seasons, famous lawgivers--all treated with the _naïveté_ and didactic purpose so characteristic of Gothic artists. Most of the carvings bear inscriptions which make the interpretation of the subjects comparatively easy. The artists, however, who wrought the fifteenth-century capitals on the W. façade seem to have been lacking in invention, for of the thirteen columns southwards from the Porta della Carta, six are copied from those wrought by the fourteenth-century masons on the S. façade.

The gallery above is beyond criticism; for originality and grace it is unique in Europe. The eye never tires of its beauty; it adds distinction to the whole structure, and it gives an element of peaceful repose and conscious security so markedly in contrast to the grim civic fortresses of Florence and Siena and other faction-ridden Italian States. The four raised windows of the main storey on the S. are due to the fact that the builders of the Hall of the Great Council cared less for external symmetry than for internal convenience. The two balconied windows, one in each façade, were added soon after the completion of the Porta della Carta. Before 1577 all the windows of the great chamber were decorated with Gothic triforia. It is now proposed to restore them, though the project meets with much opposition.

We pass through the Porta della Carta, enter the Cortile and turn to examine Riccio’s famous statues of Adam and Eve opposite the Giant’s Staircase. The inner façade was begun on the E. side by Riccio and continued by Pietro Lombardo and Scarpagnino. The two cisterns of bronze are fine Renaissance work of 1556-57.

We ascend the stately Scala dei Giganti and pass Sansovino’s statues of Mars and Neptune at the top. Here, between the two pagan deities, the later Doges were crowned. The Doge stood surrounded by the electors, and was acclaimed by the people below in the courtyard; a line of ducal guards kept the staircase.

We mount[94] the Scala d’ Oro to the chambers where the rulers of the Republic held their meetings. Nearly the whole of the architectural decorations and paintings we shall see are later than 1577, when the disastrous fire occurred which destroyed the priceless works of Gentile da Fabriano, Vittore Pisano and the Bellini. With few exceptions they are all by the later Venetian masters, characterised by vigour and breadth of treatment rather than careful execution and reverent feeling. It was a time when the rulers of Venice, their initiative and courage gone, lived on the traditions of a great past, for Lepanto was but a magnificent episode. In few cases was the artist contemporary with the events he depicted. The paintings do, however, enable us to realise the costumes and architecture of the declining Venice of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. They have suffered much at the hands of the restorer. When Goethe was examining Titian’s Death of Peter Martyr in S. Zanipolo in 1790, a Dominican friar addressed him and asked if he would like to see the artists at work above. There in the monastery he found an academy of picture restorers established by the Republic working under a director on the paintings of the Ducal Palace. In 1846 Ruskin saw a picture by Paul Veronese, lying on the floor of a room in the palace, in process of restoration. The restorer was working on the head of a white horse, using a brush fixed at the end of a five-foot stick which he dipped into a common house-painter’s pot.

In the vestibule (Atrio Quadrato) is a fine ceiling-painting by Tintoretto, Doge Lorenzo Priuli receiving the Sword of State from the Hands of Justice, one of a series of allegorical and devotional pictures, the main feature being the portrait of the Doge, which we shall meet with again and again in the decoration of the palace. The walls are hung with portraits of Procurators of St Mark by the same master, who was their official portrait painter. To the R. is the Hall of the Four Doors (Sala delle Quattro Porte), designed by Palladio. On the R. wall is a late work by Titian, Doge Antonio Grimani kneeling before Faith, a beautiful creation: the figures on either side are by his nephew, Marco Vecelli. Historical and allegorical scenes cover the remaining walls.

BY TINTORETTO]

The door opposite the entrance leads to a small ante-room (Anti-Collegio) containing some of the most charming pictures in the palace--Tintoretto’s Ariadne and Bacchus, Minerva repelling Mars, and Mercury with the Graces, painted 1578. Sensuous beauty and poetry of line are their main qualities. A famous painting by Veronese, The Rape of Europa, and Jacopo Bassano’s Return of Jacob are on the wall opposite the windows. A foreshadowing of modern naturalism in the treatment of the sheep and horse in the last picture is especially noteworthy. We now enter the room where the Signory received foreign ambassadors (Sala del Collegio). Over the entrance is a portrait of Doge Andrea Gritti kneeling before the Virgin; over the door of exit, the Marriage of St Catherine, with a ceremonial portrait of Doge Francesco Donà, elaborated with the usual accessories, the figure of the Doge’s name saint, in this case St Francis, is common to all these compositions; to the L. is a portrait of Doge Nicolo da Ponte, with the Virgin in glory; farther on, Doge Alvise Mocenigo adoring the Saviour. All these are by Tintoretto; the figures of the Virgin and of St Catherine in the second and third of these pictures are from his favourite model and in his most gracious manner. Over the throne, Doge Sebastiano Venier returning Thanks for the Victory of Lepanto, is by Veronese. The ceiling, designed by Ant. da Ponte and painted by Veronese in his grandiose style, is considered by Ruskin to be the finest in the palace. Parallel to the last two rooms is the Senate hall (Sala del Senato). The paintings here are of but secondary interest: ceremonial portraits of Doges by Palma Giovane, Marco Vecelli and Tintoretto. The central panel of the gorgeous ceiling--Venice, Queen of the Sea--is by Domenico Tintoretto, son of Jacopo. A door R. of the dais gives access to the vestibule of the Doge’s private chapel (Anti-Chiesetta). Here are the two pictures painted by Tintoretto for the Camerlenghi in 1552; over the entrance door, SS. Jerome and Andrew; opposite, St Louis of Toulouse and St George. Two early Madonnas in the chapel are doubtfully attributed to the schools of Boccacino and Bellini. Christ in Limbo and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea are attributed by Mr Berenson to Previtali. These and other paintings in the chapel afford fruitful themes for critical ingenuity.

Returning through the Senate-hall we cross the Sala delle Quattro Porte, and traverse a small ante-room to the Hall of the Ten (Sala del Consiglio dei Dieci). The ceiling pictures are by Veronese and his pupils. An oval panel, The Elder and the Fair Lady, is a famous painting by the master. We enter next the ante-room of the three Inquisitors of State (Sala della Bussola), formerly a guardroom occupied by the captain of the police and by the guards of the Ten. An opening in the wall was formerly decorated with a lion’s head in marble (_bocca del leone_). Here secret denunciations were placed from the outside. The delators would ascend the Scala dei Censori and cast their accusations in the opening on the L. at the top of the staircase. The custom of receiving secret information was common in the Republic. To this day similar _bocche di leoni_ remain in various parts of Venice--on the Zattere for denunciations of breaches of sanitary regulations with the inscription: [~DN]CIE CONTRA LA SANITA PER IL SESTIERE DE OSSODVRO; another in front of St Martin’s Church near the arsenal invites secret denunciations against blasphemers and brawlers in churches.

To the R. of the Sala della Bussola is a small chamber (Stanza dei tre Capi del Consiglio) where sat the three chiefs of the Ten. The room contains a simple, refreshing picture by Catena, Doge Leonardo Loredano kneeling and presented by St Mark to the Virgin, a St Christopher by Bonifazio, a Pietà by Giovanni Bellini, hard and realistic in treatment, and portraits of three Senators, by Tintoretto. Returning to the Sala della Bussola (the Sala dei Inquisitori di Stato is not shown), we descend the Scala dei Censori to the lower floor. Here we enter the huge Hall of the Great Council (Sala del Maggior Consiglio), on which the later artists of the Republic lavished all their powers of sumptuous decoration. The entrance wall over the throne is covered by Tintoretto’s famous Paradiso--a tremendous conception which at first almost dazes the spectator by its daring, then leaves a profound impression of the master’s gigantic but unchastened power. After patient contemplation, groups and individuals stand out from the bewildering crowd of figures--Christ and the Virgin in glory; the Archangels; the Intelligences that preside over the heavenly spheres; the Evangelists with their symbols; prophets, saints and martyrs, an exultant host, treated with originality and force, sometimes even with tender grace. But the composition is too vast; it lacks symmetry, and Domenico’s feebler hand is all too evident in parts. The eye wearies of seeing, and none but admirers of the _piu terribile cervello che abbia mai avuto la pittura_[95] will care to read the canvas in all its details. Tintoretto was seventy-five years of age when commissioned to execute the work. Ruskin estimated the number of figures to be not less than 500. To L. and R. the walls are filled with scenes from the heroic times of Venetian history. Here again the crowded canvases, the conscious straining after effect weary the spectator, and few are they who do not soon turn from detailed examination of the pictures, to rest eye and brain on the beautiful scene that opens out from the loggia on the side of the hall--the island of S. Giorgio; the Giudecca; the waters laughing in the sun; the peaceful lagoon; the Lido far away with its line of trees. The series of paintings on the N. wall represent scenes, mainly legendary, in the story of Pope Alexander III. and the Emperor Barbarossa, mostly by inferior artists. The S. wall is decorated with scenes in the epic story of the conquest of Constantinople under Enrico Dandolo; a single canvas, at the end of the hall opposite the Paradiso, by Veronese, has for its subject the return of Doge Contarini after the defeat of the Genoese at Chioggia. The panels of the magnificent ceiling were painted by Veronese, Tintoretto, Palma Giovane and F. Bassano. Veronese’s Apotheosis of Venice and Tintoretto’s Doge Nic. da Ponte with the Senate and envoys from conquered cities paying homage to Venice are stupendous works of their kind. On the frieze are portraits, mostly imaginary, of seventy-six Doges, by Tintoretto and his assistants, the place of Marino Falier being filled by a black tablet with the inscription: _Hic est locus Marini Faletri decapitati pro criminibus._ A door to the R. leads to the Hall of the Scrutineers (Sala dello Scrutinio). This, which almost rivals the Hall of the Great Council for magnificence, was the chamber where the Doges and other officers of State were elected. The S. end is filled with an ambitious Last Judgment by Palma Giovane in which that very second-rate artist tried to emulate Tintoretto’s Paradise. The E. and W. walls are decorated with scenes in the history of Venice of small artistic merit. When Garibaldi was at the Ducal Palace his attention was arrested by the resemblance to himself of the figure of Admiral Sebastiano Venier in Vicentino’s Battle of Lepanto. Thirty-nine portraits of Doges complete the line from the Hall of the Great Council ending on the W. wall with Ludovico Manin. At the N. end is the monument to Doge Francesco Morosini.

We retrace our steps to the Scala dei Censori, beyond which is a suite of rooms, once the private apartments of the Doges, now used as an archæological museum. In the corridor are two fine allegorical pictures of St Mark’s Lion by Jacobello del Fiore and Carpaccio; and Bart. Buoni’s remarkable head of Francesco Foscari. The beautiful rooms with their gilded ceilings and fine chimney-pieces by the Lombardi, contain Greek, Roman and Venetian sculpture, Renaissance bronzes, coins, old maps and other objects, many of them of high merit but only of interest to the more leisured student. In the Stanza degli Stucchi are a voting urn from the Scuola della Carità, and another from the Great Council. Before he leaves this room the visitor should ask to be shown one of the most interesting paintings in the palace--an unrestored fresco by Titian of St Christopher, with a view of Venice in the bottom background, at the foot of the staircase leading up to the Doge’s chapel. The Piombi have long since disappeared owing to structural alterations; such of the Pozzi and other cells that are shown may well be left unvisited.

Before descending the Giant’s Staircase permission may be had, on application to the “Ufficio Regionale per la Conservazione dei Monumenti del Veneto,” to inspect the “Cobden Madonna” at the E. end of the S. gallery overlooking the Grand Canal. It is a fine marble relief of the Virgin and Child with attendant angels, wrought probably by Pietro Lombardo to commemorate the reduction of the duties on corn during a severe famine in the reign of one of the Mocenighi towards the end of the fifteenth century. When Richard Cobden was in Venice in 1847, during the course of his triumphant journey through Europe, he wrote his name, which is still visible, over one of the ears of corn beneath the Latin inscription.