VENICE. THE DUCAL PALACE Enter the palace by the marble stairs, Down which the grizzly head of old Faliero Roll'd from the block. Pass onward through the chamber, - Where among all drawn in their ducal robes But one is wanting. ROGERS. THE principal, and, as it may be called, the state entrance of Venice from the sea, is by the Piazzetta di S. Marco, or Lesser Place of St. Mark, a smaller quadrangle opening into the Piazza, a great square of St. Mark. The side of the Piazzetta which is open to the Lagune is adorned with two magnificent granite columns. On the summit of one of these pillars, St. Mark yet sees his Lion where he stood When Venice was a queen with an unequalled dower. On the quay of the Piazzetta, the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa landed on the 23d of July, 1177, to accommodate his disputes with the sovereign pontiff, Alexander III., and to reconcile himself to holy church. Accompanied by the doge, the patriarch, the dignified clergy and citizens of Venice, he went in procession to the church of S. Marco, where the pope was waiting to par don his repentant son. In the vestibule of the church, Frederic, throwing off his mantle, prostrated himself at the feet of the supreme pontiff. In that temple porch Did Barbarossa fling his mantle off, And kneeling, on his neck receive the foot A piece of marble is still shown upon which, it is said, the imperial neck rested, while Alexander, placing his foot upon it, repeated the haughty sentence, "Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis." "Non tibi, sed Petro!" murmured the humiliated emperor. govern On the right of the Piazzetta stands the DUCAL PALACE, formerly called the Palazzo Ducale, Palazzo Publico, or Palazzo di S. Marco, but now the Palazzo Ex-ducale. This magnificent structure was for centuries the seat of one of the most powerful and terrible ments of Europe. The senate, which resembled a congress of kings rather than an assemblage of free merchants, the various councils of state, and the still more terrible inquisitors of state, the dreaded "Ten," here held their sittings. The splendid chambers in which the magnificent citizens were accustomed to meet, where their deliberations inspired christendom with hope, and struck dismay into the souls of the Ottomans, are still shown to the stranger; but the courage, and the constancy, and the wisdom, which then filled them, are fled. The Ducal Palace was originally erected in the ninth century; but having been on several occasions partially destroyed by fire, it has been, in portions, frequently rebuilt. Of the architecture of the palace, which, like that of other buildings in Venice, is rather Saracenic than Gothic, the reader may form his own opinion. "It is built," says that intelligent traveller, Mr. Forsyth, "in a style which may be Arabesque, if you will, but it reverses the principles of all other architecture; for here the solid rests on the open, a wall of enormous mass rests on a slender fret-work of shafts, arches, and intersected circles. The very corners are cut to admit a thin spiral column, a barbarism which I saw imitated in several old palaces." Near the principal entrance is a statue of the doge Foscaro, in white marble; and opposite to the entrance are the magnificent steps, called "the Giants' Staircase," from the colossal statues of Mars and Neptune, by which it is commanded. Here, it is said, the Doges of Venice received the symbols of sovereignty, and here the traveller may ascend The stairs by which they mounted Upon the landing-place of these stairs, the Doge Marino Faliero was sentenced to be beheaded. As Doge, clad in the ducal robes and cap, Upon the spot where it was first assumed, Thy head shall be struck off, and Heaven have mercy "When the execution was over," says the Chronicle of Sanuto, "it is said, that one of the Council of Ten went to the columns of the palace, over-against the Place |