this palace;
others might say that the lion over the Giants' Stairs is as satisfying
as any; others might prefer that fine one on the Palazzo dei Camerlenghi
by the Rialto bridge, and the Merceria clock tower's lion would not want
adherents.

Why this lovely gateway was called the Porta della Carta (paper) is not
absolutely certain: perhaps because public notices were fixed to its
door; perhaps because paper-sellers frequented it; perhaps because the
scriveners of the Republic worked hereabouts. Passing through it we have
before us the Giants' Stairs, designed by Antonio Rizzo and taking their
name from the two great figures of Mars and Neptune at the top by Jacopo
Sansovino. On the upright of each step is a delicate inlaid
pattern--where, in England, so often we read of the virtues of malted
milk or other commodity. Looking back from the foot of the stairs we see
Sansovino's Loggetta, framed by the door; looking back from the top of
the stairs we have in front of us Rizzo's statues of Adam and Eve. This
Antonio Rizzo, or Ricci, who so ably fortified Sansovino as a beautifier
of Venice, was a Veronese, of whom little is known. He flourished in the
second half of the fifteenth century.

Every opportunity of passing through the courtyard should be taken, and
during the chief hours of the day there is often--but not invariably--a
right of way between the Porta della Carta and the Riva, across the
courtyard, while the first floor gallery around it, gained by the
Giants' Stairs, is also open. For one of those capricious reasons, of
which Italian custodians everywhere hold the secret, the delightful
gallery looking on the lagoon and Piazzetta is, however, closed. I once
found my way there, but was pursued by a frantic official and scolded
back again.

The courtyard is inexhaustible in interest and beauty, from its bronze
well-heads to the grated leaden prison cells on the roof, the terrible
piombi which were so dreaded on account of their heat in summer and cold
in winter. Here in the middle of the eighteenth century that diverting
blackguard, Jacques Casanova, was imprisoned. He was "under the leads"
over the Piazzetta wing, and the account of his durance and his escape
is one of the most interesting parts, and certainly the least improper,
of his remarkably frank autobiography. Venice does not seem to have any
pride in this son of hers, but as a master of licentiousness,
effrontery, adventurousness, and unblushing cando