354 THE STONES OF VENICE

§ 27. By reference to the figure the reader will see that we have now gone the round of the palace, and that the new work of 1462 was close upon the first piece of the Gothic palace, the new Council Chamber of 1301. Some remnants of the Ziani Palace were perhaps still left between the two extremities of the Gothic palace; or, as is more probable, the last stones of it may have been swept away after the fire of 1419, and replaced by new apartments for the Doge. But whatever buildings, old or new, stood on this spot at the time of the completion of the Porta della Carta were destroyed by another great fire in 1479, together with so much of the palace on the Rio, that, though the saloon of Gradenigo, then known as the Sala de’ Pregadi, was not destroyed, it became necessary to reconstruct the entire façades of the portion of the palace behind the Bridge of Sighs, both towards the court and canal. This work was entrusted to the best Renaissance architects of the close of the fifteenth and opening of the sixteenth centuries; Antonio Ricci¹ executing the Giant’s staircase, and, on his absconding with a large sum of the public money, Pietro Lombardo² taking his place. The whole work must have been completed towards the middle of the sixteenth century. The architects of the palace, advancing round the square and led by fire, had more than reached the point from which they had set out; and the work of 1560 was joined to the work of 1301-1340, at the point marked by the conspicuous vertical line in Fig. 37 on the Rio Façade.

§ 28. But the palace was not long permitted to remain in this finished form. Another terrific fire, commonly called the Great Fire, burst out in 1574, and destroyed the inner

half of the 17th century,” 1854. “Notices concerning John Cabot and his son, Sebastian,” 1855 (this and the Avisi published by the Philobiblion Society). Also, Lettere diplomatiche inedite, Venezia, 1840; and (edited by Brown) Itinerario di Marin Sanuto per la Terraferma Veneziana, 1483: Padua, 1847; and Ragguagli sulla vita e sulle opere di Marin Sanuto: 3 vols., Venice, 1837.]

¹ [Antonio Riccio or Rizzo (“curly pate”) of Verona, called also Briosco, was appointed architect of the Palace in 1483, and absconded in 1498.]

² [Architect and sculptor, about 1445-1530. For the “Lombardic” style, see Modern Painters, vol. iii. ch. iv. § 9 n.]

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