THE BROCHURE SERIES |
| PLATE LXVII | COURT OF THE DUCAL PALACE |
THE | ||
| 1900. | SEPTEMBER | No. 9. |
THE DUCAL PALACE: VENICE
"Considered as the principalrepresentation of the Venetianschool of architecture, the DucalPalace is the Parthenon of Venice," wroteRuskin. To know its history would be toknow the entire history of the Republic,for it was not alone the residence of herdoges, but at different epochs her senate-house,her court of justice, a prison, andeven a place of execution. Combining thusin one structure, as it does, the greatestarchitectural and the greatest historicalimportance, there is, perhaps, no moreinteresting monument now existing in theworld.
In his suggestive work upon Italy, Tainehas vividly described the effect of a firstsight of the Ducal Palace. "Like a magnificentjewel in a brilliant setting, it effacesits surroundings," he writes. "Never haslike architecture been seen. All here isnovel. You feel yourself drawn out of theconventional; you realize that there is anentire world outside the Classic or Gothicforms which we impose on ourselves andendlessly repeat; that human invention isillimitable, and that, like nature, it maybreak all the rules, and produce a perfectwork after a model opposed in every particularto that to which we are instructedto conform. Every habit of the eye is reversed;and, with surprise and delight, wehere see oriental fancy grafting the full onthe empty instead of the empty on the full.A colonnade of robust shafts bears a secondand lighter one decorated with ogives andtrefoils, while upon this frail support expandsa massive wall of red and white marble,whose courses interlace in designs andreflect the light. Above, a cornice of openpyramids, pinnacles, spiracles and festoonsintersects the sky with its border,—a marblevegetation bristling and blooming abovethe vermilion and pearly tones of thefaçade.
"You enter the courtyard, and immediatelyyour eyes are filled with a new richness.Nothing is bare or cold. Eruditeand critical pedantry has not here intervened,under the pretext of purity andcorrectness, to restrain lively imaginationand the craving for visual enjoyment. Thebuilders of Venice were not austere; theydid not restrict themselves to the prescriptionsof books; they did not make up theirminds to yawn admiringly at a façadewhich had been sanctioned by Vitruvious;they wanted an architectural work to de