VIII. THE DUCAL PALACE 349

motion by a fire which occurred in 1419, and which injured both the Church of St. Mark’s, and part of the old palace fronting the Piazzetta. What followed, I shall relate in the words of Sanuto.*

§ 22. “Therefore they set themselves with all diligence and care to repair and adorn sumptuously, first God’s house:¹ but in the Prince’s house things went on more slowly, for it did not please the Doge † to restore it in the form in which it was before; and they could not rebuild it altogether in a better manner, so great was the parsimony of these old fathers; because it was forbidden by laws, which condemned in a penalty of a thousand ducats any one who should propose to throw down the old palace, and to rebuild it more richly and with greater expense. But the Doge, who was magnanimous, and who desired above all things what was honourable to the city, had the thousand ducats carried into the Senate Chamber, and then proposed that the palace should be rebuilt; saying: that, ‘since the late fire had ruined in great part the Ducal habitation (not only his own private palace, but all the places used for public business), this occasion was to be taken for an admonishment sent from God, that they ought to rebuild the palace more nobly, and in a way more befitting the greatness to which, by God’s grace, their dominions had reached; and that his motive in proposing this was neither ambition, nor selfish interest; that as for ambition, they might have seen in the whole course of his life, through so many years, that he had never done anything for ambition, either in the city, or in foreign business; but in all his actions had kept justice first in his thoughts, and then the advantage of the state,² and the honour of the Venetian name; and that, as far as regarded

* Cronaca Sanudo, No. CXXV. in the Marcian Library, p. 568.

† Tomaso Mocenigo.

¹ [For some reflections on “God’s house” and the Duke’s house, see St. Mark’s Rest, § 91.]

² [See below, § 128 n.]

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