VIII. THE DUCAL PALACE 351

year, 1853, it is that any one should propose in our House of Commons to throw down the new Houses of Parliament under the title of the “old palace,” and rebuild them.

§ 24. The manner in which Sanuto expresses himself will at once be seen to be perfectly natural, when it is remembered that although we now speak of the whole building as the “Ducal Palace,” it consisted, in the minds of the old Venetians, of four distinct buildings. There were in it the palace, the state prisons, the senate-house, and the offices of public business; in other words, it was Buckingham Palace, the Tower of olden days, the Houses of Parliament, and Downing Street, all in one; and any of these four portions might be spoken of, without involving an allusion to any other. “II Palazzo” was the Ducal residence, which, with most of the public offices, Mocenigo did propose to pull down and rebuild, and which was actually pulled down and rebuilt. But the new Council Chamber, of which the whole façade to the Sea consisted, never entered into either his or Sanuto’s mind for an instant, as necessarily connected with the Ducal residence.

I said that the new Council Chamber, at the time when Mocenigo brought forward his measure, had never yet been used. It was in the year 1422* that the decree passed to rebuild the palace: Mocenigo died in the following year,† and Francesco Foscari was elected in his room. The Great Council Chamber was used for the first time on the day when Foscari entered the Senate as Doge,-the 3rd of April, 1423, according to the Caroldo Chronicle;‡ the 23rd, which is probably correct, by an anonymous MS., No. 60, in the

* Vide notes in Appendix [No. 1 in the next volume, where the text of the decree is given.]

† On the 4th of April, 1423, according to the copy of the Zancarol Chronicle in the Marcian Library, but previously, according to the Caroldo Chronicle, which makes Foscari enter the Senate as Doge on the 3rd of April.

‡ “Nella quale (the sala del Gran Consiglio) non si fece Gran Consiglio salvo nell’ anno 1423, alli 3 April, et fu il primo giorno che il Duce Foscari venisse in Gran Consiglio dopo la sua creatione.”-Copy in Marcian Library, p. 365.

[Version 0.04: March 2008]