an painters, considered as the interpreters of worldly splendour,
fulfilled their function with the most complete success. Centuries
contributed to make the Ducal Palace what it is. The massive colonnades
and Gothic loggias of the external basement date from the thirteenth
century; their sculpture belongs to the age when Niccola Pisano's genius
was in the ascendant. The square fabric of the palace, so beautiful in the
irregularity of its pointed windows, so singular in its mosaic diaper of
pink and white, was designed at the same early period. The inner court and
the facade that overhangs the lateral canal, display the handiwork of
Sansovino. The halls of the palace--spacious chambers where the Senate
assembled, where ambassadors approached the Doge, where the Savi
deliberated, where the Council of Ten conducted their inquisition--are
walled and roofed with pictures of inestimable value, encased in framework
of carved oak; overlaid with burnished gold. Supreme art--the art of the
imagination perfected with delicate and skilful care in detail--is made in
these proud halls the minister of mundane pomp. In order that the gold
brocade of the ducal robes, that the scarlet and crimson of the Venetian
senator, might, be duly harmonised by the richness of their surroundings,
it was necessary that canvases measured by the square yard, and rendered
priceless by the authentic handiwork of Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese,
should glow upon the walls and ceilings. A more insolent display of public
wealth--a more lavish outpouring of human genius in the service of State
pageantry, cannot be imagined.

Sublime over all allegories and histories depicted in those multitudes of
paintings, sits Venezia herself enthroned and crowned, the personification
of haughtiness and power. Figured as a regal lady, with yellow hair
tightly knotted round a small head poised upon her upright throat and
ample shoulders, Venice takes her chair of sovereignty--as mistress of the
ocean to whom Neptune and the Tritons offer pearls, as empress of the
globe at whose footstool wait Justice with the sword and Peace with the
olive branch, as a queen of heaven exalted to the clouds. They have made
her a goddess, those great painters; they have produced a mythus, and
personified in native loveliness that bride of the sea, their love, their
lady. The beauty of Venetian women and the glory of Venetian empire find
their meeting point in her, and live as the spirit of Athe