ally pleaded for
the Gothic pile, and prevailed. It was successfully repaired, and
Tintoret painted his noblest picture on the wall from which the Paradise
of Guariento had withered before the flames.

Sec. XXIX. The repairs necessarily undertaken at this time were however
extensive, and interfere in many directions with the earlier work of the
palace: still the only serious alteration in its form was the
transposition of the prisons, formerly at the top of the palace, to the
other side of the Rio del Palazzo; and the building of the Bridge of
Sighs, to connect them with the palace, by Antonio da Ponte. The
completion of this work brought the whole edifice into its present form;
with the exception of alterations in doors, partitions, and staircases
among the inner apartments, not worth noticing, and such barbarisms and
defacements as have been suffered within the last fifty years, by, I
suppose, nearly every building of importance in Italy.

Sec. XXX. Now, therefore, we are liberty to examine some of the details
of the Ducal Palace, without any doubt about their dates. I shall not,
however, give any elaborate illustrations of them here, because I could
not do them justice on the scale of the page of this volume, or by means
of line engraving. I believe a new era is opening to us in the art of
illustration,[137] and that I shall be able to give large figures of the
details of the Ducal Palace at a price which will enable every person
who is interested in the subject to possess them; so that the cost and
labor of multiplying illustrations here would be altogether wasted. I
shall therefore direct the reader's attention only to points of interest
as can be explained in the text.

Sec. XXXI. First, then, looking back to the woodcut at the beginning of
this chapter, the reader will observe that, as the building was very
nearly square on the ground plan, a peculiar prominence and importance
were given to its angles, which rendered it necessary that they should
be enriched and softened by sculpture. I do not suppose that the fitness
of this arrangement will be questioned; but if the reader will take the
pains to glance over any series of engravings of church towers or other
four-square buildings in which great refinement of form has been
attained, he will at once observe how their effect depends on some
modification of the sharpness of the angle, either by groups of
buttresses, or by turrets and niches rich in sculpture. It i