• Palazzo Ducale

The DUCAL PALACE was the Doges' residence, the main administrative building, the public Archives and the Palace of Justice: the most decisive events in the history of the old Republic took place here. The Doge's Palace is for Gothic architecture in Venice what St. Mark's Church was for Veneto-Byzantine art.

At the beginning of the 9th century the Doges' Government was transferred there, perhaps at first using as a basis some pre-existing Roman buildings. That residence was destroyed by fire, together with the Basilica in 976 but the Doge Pietro Orseolo restored it. Fire damaged it again in 1106 and it was then rebuilt in such shape and dignity as to inspire the admiration of the Emperor Henry V, at his reception there in 1116. In 1340 it was decided to rebuild a spacious and magnificent new hall for the most august legislative assembly; it was designed and built on the spot and with the dimensions, which have been maintained unchanged down to our days. It took more than 20 years to build, with various interruptions: on July 30, 1419, the Maggior Consiglio held assembly for the first time in the splendid hall. The completion of the whole palace in the façade towards the Piazzetta was started in 1424 by copying the design of the first wing to be built in the 14th century palace. In 1483, after the fire of September 14 (which had caused the destruction of all that part of the edifice between Rio di Palazzo and the Courtyard), Antonio Rizzo from Verona was nominated director of the works in the Palace. This artist possessed a vigorous, stable and well-balanced conception of architecture. In the more austere Façade towards the Rio he left the signs of his powerful genius. But the over-rich marble decorations added to it by the Lombardo family spoiled and enfeebled it with too much detail and elegance, which they were too fond of. Only few and limited adaptations and internal decorations were added to the old edifice of the Palace in the following two centuries until the tragic days of the fall of the old regime. When the Austrians were driven out in the years of the epic rebellion (1848-1849), Daniele Manin set up the provisional government in the Palace and he proclaimed his "Resistance to Austria at all costs" to the people assembled in the Piazzetta on April 2, 1849. But the dangerous static conditions of the centuries-old building made it advisable to prepare a restoration programme (1874). A decree of December 1923 by the Government, passed the Doge's Palace (a State owned monument) back to the supervision of the city.