[Illustration: ATRIUM AND DUCAL STAIRS IN THE PALAZZO DANDOLO]


After the Dandolos and the Grittis, the Michiel, the Mocenigo and the
Bernardo families became its possessors by marriage, and they retained
it till the beginning of the present century, when, as we have said,
its second floor was sold, by the noble Dame Helen Michiel, widow of
Alvise Bernardo to Dal Niel. Dal Niel left it to his daughter Alfonsina
Muzzarelli, who was able, in 1840 to buy the first floor from the noble
Filippo Nani, the heir of the Mocenigos; and thus the whole building
passed to her daughter Giuseppina Roux, and forms the present Hotel
Royal Danieli.

The interior of this beautiful Palace we have already described its
architecture in Venetian Gothic, and Sansovino's hand is to be traced
in many of its details. It well deserves the reputation that it enjoys
of being one of the noblest hotels in the world--indeed its artistic
beauties, and its historic associations, can only be equalled by its
unique and romantic position. Mme Georges Sand, who lodged in the hotel
in May 1834, as she watched from her balcony the sun setting over the
enchanting scene spread out before her, writes in her Letters of a
Traveller--«The sun had set behind the Euganean hills, great purple
clouds hung in the sky over Venice. The tower of St Mark's, the domes
of Sta. Maria, and the forest of spires and minarets that rise from all
parts of Venice, were drawn in black outline against the burnished
horizon. The sky passed, by an admirable gradation, from cherry red to
enamelled blue; and the water, calm and limpid as a glass, gave back the
exact reflection of this immense iridescence. Nearer the town the lagoon
was like a vast mirror of bronze. Never had I seen Venice so lovely and
so fairy-like».