George, that black Dogana, built with Venetian stones from
Constantinople, a monument of hatred and perhaps of love,--hatred of the
Venetians, of the Pisans too, for here till our own time hung the iron
chains of Porto Pisano that Corrado Doria took in 1290; and of love,
since it was to preserve Genoa and her dominion that the Banca was
founded. Over the door you may still see remnants of the device the
Guelph Fieschi Pope, Innocent VII, gave to his native city when he came
to see her, the griffin of Genoa strangling the imperial eagle and the
fox of Pisa; while under is the motto, _Griphus ut has agit, sic hostes
Genua frangit_.

It was Guglielmo Boccanegra who built the place, as the inscription
reminds you,--it was his palace. But only the façade landward remains
from his time, with the lions' heads, the great hall and the façade
seaward dating from 1571, eleven years after Doria's death. In the tower
is the old bell which used to summon the Grand Council; it is of
seventeenth-century work, and was presented to the Bank by the Republic
of Holland.[2]

Within, the palace is a ruin, only the Hall of Grand Council being in
any way worth a visit. Here you may see statues of the chief benefactors
of the city from the middle of the fourteenth century to the middle of
the seventeenth. And by a curious device worthy of this city of
merchants, each citizen got a statue according to his gifts. Those who
save 100,000 lire were carved sitting there, while those who gave but
half this were carved standing; less rich and less liberal benefactors
got a bust or a mere commemorative stone, each according to his
liberality, and this (strangely we may think), in a city so religious
that it is dedicated to Madonna, might seem to leave nothing for the
widow with her mite who gave more than they all.