346 THE STONES OF VENICE

walls;* so that the building must, at any rate, have been roofed by this time. Its decorations and fittings, however, were long in completion; the paintings on the roof being only executed in 1400.† They represented the heavens covered with stars,‡ this being, says Sansovino, the bearings of the Doge Steno. Almost all ceilings and vaults were at this time in Venice covered with stars, without any reference to armorial bearings; but Steno claims, under his noble title of Stellifer, an important share in completing the chamber, in an inscription upon two square tablets, now inlaid in the walls on each side of the great window towards the sea:

“MILLE QUADRINGENTI CURREBANT QUATUOR ANNI

HOC OPUS ILLUSTRIS MICHAEL DUX STELLIFER AUXIT.”

And in fact it is to this Doge¹ that we owe the beautiful balcony of that window, though the work above it is partly of more recent date; and I think the tablets bearing this important inscription have been taken out and reinserted in the newer masonry. The labour of these final decorations occupied a total period of sixty years. The Grand Council sat in the finished chamber for the first time in 1423. In that year the Gothic Ducal Palace of Venice was completed. It had taken, to build it, the energies of the entire period which I have above described as the central one of her life.²

* “Il primo che vi colorisse fu Guariento, il quale l’ anno 1365 vi fece il Paradiso in testa della sala.”-Sansovino.

† “L’ an poi 1400 vi fece il cielo compartita a quadretti d’ oro, ripieni di stelle, ch’ era la insegna del Doge Steno.”-Sansovino, lib. VIII.

‡ “In questi tempi si messe in ore il cielo della sala del Gran Consiglio et si fece il pergolo del finestra grande che guarda sul canale, adornato l’ uno e l’ altro di stelle, ch’ erano l’ insegne del Doge.”-Sansovino, lib. XIII. Compare also Pareri, p. 129.

¹ [Reigned 1400-1414.]

² [Ruskin was much gratified when this coincidence was borne in upon him; the discovery was a landmark in his work. He describes it in a letter to his father:-

“Sunday, February 1st [1852].-... I am happy to say that the book is now coming well together. I see both ends of it in one view, which is comfortable, and I am very happy to find that my further investigations confirm and fit in delightfully with my first chapter [of vol. i.]. You will see that that first chapter promises three divisions of the main subject: the

[Version 0.04: March 2008]