The Rough Guide to Venice and the Veneto

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The Palazzo Ducale
of the doge, six ducal councillors, the three heads of the judiciary, and sixteen
Savi (senators with special responsibility for maritime, military and governmental
affairs). The Signoria, Venice’s highest executive body, was the inner council of
this inner council, comprising the Collegio minus the Savi. In Ruskin’s opinion,
in no other part of the palace could you “enter so deeply into the heart of Venice”
as in the Sala del Collegio, but his observation referred not to the mechanics of
Venetian power but to the luscious cycle of ceiling paintings by Veronese.
Outstanding is Venice Triumphant, the central panel above the throne. Veronese
also produced the picture on the wall over the throne – Doge Sebastiano Venier
Offering Thanks to Christ for the Victory of Lépanto, in which, as is often the case in
Venetian state-sponsored art, the Son of God is obliged to share top billing. Other
doges get similarly immodest treatment in the adjoining paintings: Doge Alvise
Mocenigo Adoring Christ, Doge Niccolò da Ponte Invoking the Protection of the Virgin, The
Mystic Marriage of St Catherine, with Doge Francesco Donato (all by Tintoretto and
his workshop) and, over the door to the Anticollegio, Doge Andrea Gritti before the
Virgin (Tintoretto). For more on Doge Andrea Gritti, see p.180.
The Sala del Senato
The room next door – the Sala del Senato – was where most major policies,
both domestic and foreign, were determined. It was also where the ambassadors
of Venice delivered their reports on the countries in which they had served. These
relazioni were essential to the formation of foreign policy, and a Venetian nobleman
did his career prospects no harm by turning in a detailed document; few,
however, equalled the conscientiousness of the sixteenth-century ambassador to
France whose speech to the Senate kept them in their seats for two whole days.
Originally comprising just sixty councillors (who were formally invited to take
up office by the doge, hence the alternative name Sala dei Pregadi, from pregati,
meaning “beseeched”), the Senate grew to contain almost three hundred officials
under the doge’s chairmanship, holding office for one year and elected by the
Maggior Consiglio.
A motley collection of late sixteenth-century artists, Tintoretto and his pupils
prominent among them, produced the mechanically bombastic decoration of the
walls and ceiling. Tintoretto’s personal touch is most evident in the picture above
the throne: Descent from the Cross, with doges Pietro Lando and Marcantonio Trevisan.
For sheer shamelessness, however, nothing can match the centrepiece of the ceiling,
Tintoretto’s Venice Exalted Among the Gods. (On rare occasions the doors to the
side of the throne are open – they lead to the doge’s chapel and its anteroom; only
the marble Virgin and Child by Sansovino, in the former, is of interest.)
The Sala del Consiglio dei Dieci and Sala della Bussola
After recrossing the Sala delle Quattro Porte you enter the Sala del Consiglio dei
Dieci, the room in which all matters relating to state security were discussed. The
Council of Ten was established in 1310 in response to the revolt of disaffected
nobles led by Bajamonte Tiepolo – and the secrecy and speed of its deliberations,
and the fact that it allowed no defence counsel, soon made it the most feared of the
Republic’s institutions. Its members held office for one year and their number was
supplemented by the doge and the ducal councillors – which meant, confusingly,
that the Ten were never fewer than seventeen.
In the sixteenth century the Ten became even stronger, as an indirect result
of the War of the League of Cambrai, when places on the Senate were given to
an assortment of social climbers in reward for the loans they’d made for the war
effort. The men of the Case Grandi (see p.62) retaliated by increasing the power of