344 THE STONES OF VENICE

the stone-cutter and his associates* ..., for a stone of which the lion is made which is put over the gate of the palace.”

“1344, November 4. We have paid thirty-five golden ducats for making gold leaf, to gild the lion which is over the door of the palace stairs.”

The position of this door is disputed, and is of no consequence to the reader, the door itself having long ago disappeared, and been replaced by the Porta della Carta.

§ 18. But before it was finished, occasion had been discovered for further improvements. The Senate found their new Council Chamber inconveniently small, and, about thirty years after its completion, began to consider where a larger and more magnificent one might be built. The government was now thoroughly established, and it was probably felt that there was some meanness in the retired position, as well as insufficiency in the size, of the Council Chamber on the Rio. The first definite account which I find of their proceedings, under these circumstances, is in the Caroldo Chronicle:†

“1340. On the 28th of December, in the preceding year, Master Marco Erizzo, Nicolo Soranzo, and Thomas Gradenigo, were chosen to examine where a new saloon might be built in order to assemble therein the Greater Council. .... On the 3rd of June, 1341, the Great Council elected two procurators of the work of this saloon, with a salary of eighty ducats a year.”

It appears from the entry still preserved in the Archivio, and quoted by Cadorin, that it was on the 28th of December, 1340, that the commissioners appointed to decide on this important matter gave in their report to the Grand Council, and that the decree passed thereupon for the commencement of a new Council Chamber on the Grand Canal.‡

* “Libras tres, soldos 15 grossorum.”-Cadorin, 189, 1.

† Cod. Ven., No. CXLI., p. 365.

‡ Sansovino is more explicit than usual in his reference to this decree: “For it having appeared that the place (the first Council Chamber) was not

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