wept away after the fire of 1419, and
replaced by new apartments for the Doge. But whatever buildings, old or
new, stood on this spot at the time of the completion of the Porta della
Carta were destroyed by another great fire in 1479, together with so
much of the palace on the Rio that, though the saloon of Gradenigo, then
known as the Sala de' Pregadi, was not destroyed, it became necessary to
reconstruct the entire facades of the portion of the palace behind the
Bridge of Sighs, both towards the court and canal. This work was
entrusted to the best Renaissance architects of the close of the
fifteenth and opening of the sixteenth centuries; Antonio Ricci
executing the Giant's staircase, and on his absconding with a large sum
of the public money, Pietro Lombardo taking his place. The whole work
must have been completed towards the middle of the sixteenth century.
The architects of the palace, advancing round the square and led by
fire, had more than reached the point from which they had set out; and
the work of 1560 was joined to the work of 1301-1340, at the point
marked by the conspicuous vertical line in Figure XXXVII. on the Rio
Facade.

Sec. XXVIII. But the palace was not long permitted to remain in this
finished form. Another terrific fire, commonly called the great fire,
burst out in 1574, and destroyed the inner fittings and all the precious
pictures of the Great Council Chamber, and of all the upper rooms on the
Sea Facade, and most of those on the Rio Facade, leaving the building a
mere shell, shaken and blasted by the flames. It was debated in the
Great Council whether the ruin should not be thrown down, and an
entirely new palace built in its stead. The opinions of all the leading
architects of Venice were taken, respecting the safety of the walls, or
the possibility of repairing them as they stood. These opinions, given
in writing, have been preserved, and published by the Abbe Cadorin, in
the work already so often referred to; and they form one of the most
important series of documents connected with the Ducal Palace.

I cannot help feeling some childish pleasure in the accidental
resemblance to my own name in that of the architect whose opinion was
first given in favor of the ancient fabric, Giovanni Rusconi. Others,
especially Palladio, wanted to pull down the old palace, and execute
designs of their own; but the best architects in Venice, and to his
immortal honor, chiefly Francesco Sansovino, energetic