Architecture And Historical Memories: The Doge’s Palace

It is chiefly for architecture and historical memories that this palace can interest the traveller. There are many large and showy paintings here, but few of high quality. The better ones are near the entrance, on the third floor, in the small rooms called the Anticollegio and the Collegio. The Veronese Europa, mentioned below, is here, and some small decorative Tintorettos, especially Bacchus and Ariadne. In the Hall of the Maggior Consiglio is Tintoretto’s huge Paradise, utterly disappointing, academic and dead by comparison with his marvellous sketch of the same subject in the Louvre. Elsewhere one sees the fine talents of Veronese and other great artists devoted to covering acres of walls and ceilings with vulgarly overdecorated, though technically dazzling, glorifications of Venetian power and wealth.