we make for the Sala del Consiglio dei
Dieci, the terrible Council of Ten. All Venetian histories are eloquent
upon this secret Tribunal, which, more powerful far than the Doge
himself, for five centuries, beginning early in the fourteenth, ruled
the city. On the walls are historical paintings which are admirable
examples of story-telling, and on the ceiling are Veroneses, original or
copied, the best of which depicts an old man with his head on his hand,
fine both in drawing and colour. It was in the wall of the next room
that the famous Bocca di Leone was placed, into which were dropped those
anonymous charges against Venetian citizens which the Council of Ten
investigated, and if true, or, very likely, if not true, punished with
such swiftness and thoroughness. How a state that offered such easy
temptations to anti-social baseness and treachery could expect to
prosper one cannot imagine. It suggests that the Venetian knowledge of
human nature was defective at the roots.

In the next room the Three Heads of the Council of Ten debated, and here
the attendant goes into spasms of delight over a dazzling inlaid floor.

This is all that is shown upstairs, for the piombi, or prison cells in
the leaden roof, are now closed.

Downstairs we come to the two Great Halls--first the gigantic Sala del
Maggior Consiglio, with Tintoretto's "Paradiso" at one end; historical
pictures all around; the portraits of the Doges above; a gorgeous
ceiling which, I fear, demands attention; and, mercifully, the little
balcony over the lagoon for escape and recovery. But first let us peep
into the room on the left, where the remains of Guariento's fresco of
Paradise, which Tintoretto was to supersede, have been set up: a
necessarily somewhat meaningless assemblage of delicate tints and pure
drawing. Then the photograph stall, which is in that ancient room of the
palace that has the two beautiful windows on a lower level than the
rest.

It is melancholy to look round this gigantic sala of the great Council
and think of the pictures which were destroyed by the great fire in
1576, when Sebastiano Venier was Doge, among them that rendering of the
battle of Lepanto, the Doge's own victory, which Tintoretto painted with
such enthusiasm. A list of only a few of the works of art which from
time to time have fallen to the flames would be tragic reading. Among
the artists whose paintings were lost in the 1576 fire were, in addition
to Tintoretto, Titi