The Doge’s Palace

Tuesday May 16th 2023

Today Paul was anxious to visit the Doge’s Palace, as he couldn’t remember our last visit there, which was in 2008. There was also a Carpaccio exhibition that we wanted to see in the same place, so we set off for San Marco. The boat stopped at San Zaccaria and we walked from there, which gave us the opportunity of looking along the canal that goes along one side of the Palazzo Ducale and photographing the Bridge of Sighs.

0I imagine that most people already know the legend, that the bridge, which was built in 1600 to link the Palazzo with the prison, takes it name from the lamentations of the prisoners as they made their way to the prison and the offices of the feared state inquisitors. Later we had the opportunity to walk across it to view the prison, and, fortunately, to come back again.

We started at the Carpaccio exhibition, which brings together paintings and drawings from major museums and private collections all over Europe and the United States. Unfortunately, photography isn’t allowed, as I discovered when I took one. So I only have the one photo, though it’s quite an interesting one.

It’s interesting because it was originally a single painted panel, probably on a door. It was sawn in half at the end of the 1700s, with the lower half, the Two Women, being acquired by Teodoro Correr (we visited the Correr Museum yesterday). The upper half, Fishing and Fowling on the Lagoon, moved to Rome. This exhibition brought the two halves together in a view not seen for over 200 years. Paul thinks that the two women in question are bored out of their minds waiting for their husbands to come back from a day of sport!

Not only was photography not allowed, I was told off for touching the wall. The labels were placed at waist level so you had to bend to read them. My back got tired after a while, so I put my hand on the wall near the label and was immediately told off! 

There were some beautiful paintings which I really liked and there didn’t even seem to be postcards to buy, which is a real shame. However, I found one of the ones I really liked on the internet.

It was painted in 1500 and is called The Virgin Mary and John the Baptist praying to the Christ Child. As well as really liking it, I find it amusing the the holy characters have become wealthy Venetians.

At least there were some seats in the exhibition. Once we got into the Palazzo Ducal, there were none and I became very exhausted. It’s not realistic for ladies of nearly 80 to have to spend hours on their feet! 

The Palazzo Ducale started life in the 9th century as a castle, but this and subsequent buildings were destroyed by fire. The current building dates externally to the 14th and 15th centuries. The interior decorations are 16th century or later. This is a view of the internal courtyard.

It backs onto the basilica of St Marks, as you can see. We had hoped to get into the basilica, but the queues were several hundred yards long, and it was quite impossible for me to contemplate standing for that long.

The tour of the Palazzo Ducale starts with all the public rooms. To demonstrate the wealth and power of the state, the rooms were all painted, on both walls and ceilings, and encrusted with gold. This is the Council Chamber.

It’s rather different from the Tandridge Council Chamber, where Paul and I went to have our first Covid vaccination! 

Below is the Senate Chamber, which is even more embellished.



I felt obliged to photograph the ceiling as well, to give a better view of the encrusted gold embelllisments.



By the time we had examined about 8 or 10 of these highly decorated  rooms, I was beginning to feel I could hardly bear to look at any more opulence, but there was more to come. My final photo of this part of the Palazzo is the Chamber of the Great Council. 



The reason I included this one is the huge painting, taking up the entire wall. It is entitled Paradise, and was painted between 1588 and 1592 by Domenico and Jacopo Tintoretto. Given its size, I’m not surprised it took 4 years.

After all these public rooms, we passed on to displays of weapons, by which time I was too tired to do more than walk past the displays of armour. swords, lances, billhooks, then guns and finally a cannon.

After that, we passed on to the picture gallery. There were some interesting paintings, amongst which I have picked out this Hieronymus Bosch. 

It’s simply entitled Apocalypse.

After the pictures, we crossed the Bridge of Sighs to visit the prison. I would have photographed the bridge from the inside, but it’s just a stone tunnel with one barred window which you can’t really see out of. The prison is pretty forbidding too.

This was one of the taller doors. Some of them were only just over waist high and you would have had to bend over to get in. I found it quite claustrophobic. The prison seemed interminable, with what felt like miles of stone corridors and stairways, and I was glad to finally get out!

We refreshed ourselves with a visit to the café, then set of to visit a Scuola not too far away, where there are more Carpaccio paintings. But the rain started, and my phone’s GPS decided not to work. Paul’s phone had run out of charge, and we were getting quite wet. So in the end I gave in and we decided to go back to the flat, so we went to wait for a boat. This is the view from the boat dock. The number 1 boat is approaching us but it has to wait for the gondola which is in the way. In the background, the yellow Alilaguna boat is on its way back to the airport.

The people in the gondola don’t look happy. It is very windy and cold, as well as raining. I don’t know what it was like in the gondola, but the boat dock, which is floating, was pitching and tossing quite a bit. Getting into and out of the boat wasn’t easy, and it was too windy to put umbrellas up on the walk back. I was glad to be back. My cold is streaming, and now Paul is sneezing like mad, so he probably has it too.