Uningratiating splendour--Doges and Heaven--Venetian pride--The most
beautiful picture of all--A non-scriptural Tintoretto--The Sala del
Collegio--The Sala del Senato--More Doges and Heaven--The Council of
Ten--Anonymous charges--Tintoretto's "Last Judgment"--An immense
room--Tintoretto's "Paradiso"--Sebastiano Ziani and his exploits--Pope
Alexander III and Barbarossa--Old blind Dandolo--The Crusades--Zara--The
Fall of Constantinople--Marino Faliero and his fall--The first Doge in
the room--The last Doge in the room--The Sala dello Scrutinio--Palma's
"Last Judgment"--A short way with mistresses--The rest of the Doges--Two
battle pictures--The Doges' suites--The Archæological Museum--The Bridge
of Sighs--The dungeons.


I have to confess to weariness in the Ducal apartments. The rooms are
splendid, no doubt, and the pictures are monuments of energy; but it is
the windows that frame the most delectable scenes. In Venice, where the
sun usually shines, one's normal wish is to be out, except when, as in
S. Mark's there is the wonder of dimness too. For Venice is not like
other historic cities; Venice, for all her treasures of art, is first
and foremost the bride of the Adriatic, and the call of the sea is
strong. Art's opportunity is the dull days and rainy.

With the best will to do so, I cannot be much impressed by the glory and
power of the Doges. They wear a look, to me, very little removed from
Town Councillors: carried out to the highest power, no doubt, but
incorrigibly municipal none the less; and the journey through these
halls of their deliberations is tedious and unenchanting. That I am
wrong I am only too well aware. Does not Venetian history, with its
triumphs and pageantry of world-power, prove it? And would Titian and