Popular tradition and a large number of the chroniclers ascribe the
building of the Ducal Palace to that Filippo Calendario who suffered
death for his share in the conspiracy of Faliero. He was certainly one
of the leading architects of the time, and had for several years the
superintendence of the works of the Palace; but it appears, from the
documents collected by the Abbe Cadorin, that the first designer of the
Palace, the man to whom we owe the adaptation of the Frari traceries to
civil architecture, was Pietro Baseggio, who is spoken of expressly as
"formerly the Chief Master of our New Palace,"[58] in the decree of
1361, quoted by Cadorin, and who, at his death, left Calendario his
executor. Other documents collected by Zanotto, in his work on "Venezia
e le sue Lagune," show that Calendario was for a long time at sea, under
the commands of the Signory, returning to Venice only three or four
years before his death; and that therefore the entire management of the
works of the Palace, in the most important period, must have been
entrusted to Baseggio.

It is quite impossible, however, in the present state of the Palace, to
distinguish one architect's work from another in the older parts; and I
have not in the text embarrassed the reader by any attempt at close
definition of epochs before the great junction of the Piazzetta Facade
with the older palace in the fifteenth century. Here, however, it is
necessary that I should briefly state the observations I was able to
make on the relative dates of the earlier portions.

In the description of the Fig-tree angle, given in the eighth chapter of
Vol. II., I said that it seemed to me somewhat earlier than that of the
Vine, and the reader might be surprised at the apparent opposition of
this statement to my supposition that the Palace was built gradually
round from the Rio Facade to the Piazzetta. But in the two great open
arcades there is no succession of work traceable; from the Vine angle to
the junction with the fifteenth century work, above and below, all seems
nearly of the same date, the only question being of the accidental
precedence of workmanship of one capital or another; and I think, from
its style, that the Fig-tree angle must have been first completed. But
in the upper stories of the Palace there are enormous differences of
style. On the Rio Facade, in the upper story, are several series of
massive windows of the third order, corresponding exactly in mouldings