VIII. THE DUCAL PALACE 355

fittings and all the precious pictures of the Great Council Chamber, and of all the upper rooms on the Sea Façade, and most of those on the Rio Façade, leaving the building a mere shell, shaken and blasted by the flames. It was debated in the Great Council whether the ruin should not be thrown down, and an entirely new palace built in its stead. The opinions of all the leading architects of Venice were taken, respecting the safety of the walls, or the possibility of repairing them as they stood. These opinions, given in writing, have been preserved, and published by the Abbé Cadorin, in the work already so often referred to;¹ and they form one of the most important series of documents connected with the Ducal Palace.

I cannot help feeling some childish pleasure in the accidental resemblance to my own name in that of the architect whose opinion was first given in favour of the ancient fabric, Giovanni Rusconi.² Others, especially Palladio, wanted to pull down the old palace, and execute designs of their own; but the best architects in Venice, and, to his immortal honour, chiefly Francesco Sansovino, energetically pleaded for the Gothic pile, and prevailed. It was successfully repaired, and Tintoret painted his noblest picture on the wall from which the “Paradise” of Guariento had withered before the flames.³

§ 29. The repairs necessarily undertaken at this time were however extensive, and interfere in many directions with the earlier work of the palace: still the only serious alteration in its form was the transposition of the prisons, formerly at the top of the palace, to the other side of the Rio del Palazzo; and the building of the Bridge of Sighs, to connect them with the palace, by Antonio da Ponte.⁴ The completion of this work brought the whole edifice into

¹ [The book is Pareri (opinions) di XV. Architetti, etc.: see above, ch. vii. § 10, for some quotations from it.]

² [For Rusconi’s opinion, see above, ch. vii. § 10.]

³ [See above, § 19, for Guariento; and below, p. 438, for Tintoret’s “Paradise.”]

⁴ [Giovanni Antonio del Ponte, of Venice, 1512-1597; architect also of the Rialto bridge.]

[Version 0.04: March 2008]