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
Stand, but in mockery of his wither'd power,
Over the proud place where an emperor sued,

And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour

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.

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.

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 governments 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 ascend

may

The stairs by which they mounted
To sovereignty, the Giants' Stairs, on whose
Broad eminence they were invested dukes.

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,
Thou shalt be led hence to the Giants' Staircase,
Where thou and all our princes are invested;
And there, the ducal crown being first resumed

Upon the spot where it was first assumed,

Thy head shall be struck off, and Heaven have mercy
Upon thy soul!,

"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

of St. Mark, and that he showed the bloody sword unto the people, crying out, with a loud voice, 'The terrible doom hath fallen upon the traitor;' and the doors were opened, and the people all rushed in to see the corpse of the duke who had been beheaded." It is a remarkable fact, that out of the first fifty Doges of Venice, five abdicated, five were banished with their eyes put out, five were massacred, and nine deposed. Well might Lord Byron say that the Venetians seem to have had a passion for breaking the hearts of their doges! The fatality which waited upon the chiefs of the republic tracked their footsteps to the end; and Manini, the last doge of Venice, was struck to the earth with sudden and mortal sickness while in the degrading act of swearing fidelity to the Austrians.

The staircase leads to the apartments which were formerly appropriated to the doge, and to the various chambers of council and of state, in which the Venetian nobles were used to assemble. The apartments are filled with the noblest specimens of the Venetian school. In the hall of the college, on the east side of the building, where the signory were accustomed to grant audiences to the ambassadors of foreign states, may be seen a splendid picture of Europa, by Paul Veronese, with others from the pencil of Tintoret. The ceilings in the hall of the Council of Ten, and in the adjoining room, are also ornamented by the hand of the former master. Almost every room is filled with matchless specimens of art.

On every side the eye of the stranger rests upon monuments of the faded glory of Venice. The walls of the grand-council hall are covered with pictures recalling