|
Let me catapult you inside the Doge Palace through a photographic tour, adding, here and there, a piece of information.
But before that: what was the Doge Palace. The Doge was the ruler of Venice, a nobleman elected through one the most complicated voting mechanisms ever conceived by humankind. So complicated that a visual representation was needed to remember the various phases:
|
|
|
|
|
The Maggior Consiglio assembly was made up of up to two thousand patricians. Of these, thirty were chosen through a lottery (representing the hand and will of God and compensating for the absence of the rest of the population). All the relatives of the chosen had to leave the room to avoid repetitions and strengthen one family or the other. Between this group nine were chosen by lot, and these nine elected forty. Through another lottery, these were reduced to twelve. The twelve elected twenty-five. Another lottery brought them to nine. The nine elected forty-five who were, again, declined to eleven. These voted for the final forty-one who'd elect the Doge.
All this mess was to minimize the possibility of creating factions and concentrating the power in a few hands.
But in Italy, there's a saying: "Fatta la legge, trovato l'inganno", which translates into something like "passed the law, found the loophole". Don't ask me how, but in Venice, they found a way too.
|
The Palazzo Ducale was the residence of the Doge but also the center of political and administrative life. The reason why one of the first things we encounter is this mouthed "mailbox" where anonymous denunciations could be dropped:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Clocks in Venice had initially twenty-four numbers and the church bells tolledd accordingly. When the numerous tolls became annoying and complicated to count, both the numbers and the sounds were halved. Notice that the counting starts at eighteen, because it was then that the churches began to announce the time.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Jupiter fulminates the vices in the Room of The Consiglio Dei Dieci, the Council of Ten, a sort of "more powerful" group of patricians:
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Justice waiting room:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Remember the Lion of Venice?
|
|
|
|
|
|
The room of the Maggior Consiglio:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
My favorite painting in this majestic room: Crusaders Conquer the City of Zara by Andrea Vicentino:
|
|
|
|
|
|
A triumphal arch by Andrea Tirali to honor the Doge Francesco Morosini Peloponnesiaco, who died during the war in Morea:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Wallpaper for the room of my dreams:
|
|
|
|
|
|
"NUNQUAM DERELICTA", never defeated in the astonishing ceiling by Paolo Veronese:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mars and Neptune representing the sea and land power of Venice - Veronese:
|
|
|
|
|
|
Neptune again, guarding the so-called Scala dei Giganti, the Giants' Staircase:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The view from the Ponte Dei Sospriri, the "sospiri", sighs, of the prisoners (Casanova, too!) on their way to their cells (but he, eventually, escaped!).
|
|
|
|
|
That's it for today, amici belli. Go get yourself a gelato or a granita to top your cultural day!
|
|
|
|
FROM THE BLOG
|
