Ducal Palace

“ In every structure, the base is commonly broad; the monument diminishes in thickness as it encroaches on the sky. The Ducal Palace is the exact opposite of that natural scheme of architecture: the base, pierced by light porticoes surmounted by a gallery of arabesques indented with four-leaved open trefoils, supports an almost bare square mass: one would say it was a fortress built upon pillars, or rather an inverted building planted on its light coping with its thick root in the air. ”

“ At the hour we have named, the vast parallelogram of the piazza was filling fast, the cafés and casinos within the porticoes, which surround three of its sides, being already thronged with company. While all beneath the arches was gay and brilliant with the flare of torch and lamp, the noble range of edifices called the Procuratories, the massive pile of the Ducal Palace, the most ancient Christian church, the granite columns of the piazzetta, the triumphal masts of the great square, and the giddy tower of the campanile, were slumbering in the more mellow glow of the moon. ”

“ The gloomy old fortress of the feudal masters of the town had been replaced, in those later years of the Quattro-cento, by a consummate monument of Quattro-cento taste, a museum of ancient and modern art, the owners of which lived there, gallantly at home, amid the choicer flowers of living humanity. The ducal palace was, in fact, become nothing less than a school of ambitious youth in all the accomplishments alike of war and peace. Raphael's connexion with it seems to have become intimate, and from the first its influence must have overflowed so small a place. ”

“ In perspective, on one side the Ducal Palace appears, and on the other the Campanile and the angle of the Procuratorie, while in the distance is the Clock-Tower. The Piazza is full of people. Priests in fine vestments, Senators in their robes, soldiers with nodding plumes in their hats, trumpeters and drummers, all witness the ceremony. The Doge, wearing the ducal crown, in his crimson velvet dress, beneath the mantle of the cloth of gold, is most impressive, as he slightly bends his knee when receiving the sword. ”

“ To our left was a garden, and a little behind it rose the group of domes and the lofty isolated campanili of St. Mark. We knew it was St. Mark’s, and were therefore not surprised at its exquisite beauty, though, owing to the intervening buildings, we could only see its domes and campanile. The Ducal Palace, strange to say, did not present so striking an appearance by moonlight, owing to its somewhat box-like outline. But still the deep gloom of its arcades somewhat repaid the mind for the disappointment experienced in its general aspect. ”

“ There is nothing within it so entrancing as its exterior—always with the exception of Tintoretto's, "Bacchus and Ariadne."
The Ducal Palace is Gothic made sprightly and sunny;{66} Gothic without a hint of solidity or gloom. So light and fresh is the effect, chiefly the result of the double row of arches and especially of the upper row, but not a little due to the zig-zagging of the brickwork and the vivid cheerfulness of the coping fringe, that one has difficulty in believing that the palace is of any age at all or that it will really be there to-morrow. ”

“ It will be seen that my supposition that the original design of the Ducal Palace was of considerably less elevation than the present building, would tend to make it very much more like the Byzantine type than it is; but even now no one can dispute the family likeness. The amount of constructive art is as nearly as possible the same. The weight is supported by a succession of shafts placed at very short intervals from each other, and in neither is there any approach to the system of pier, arch, and buttress, so distinctive of Gothic art in the North of Europe. ”

“ Mark's Place is all covered over in a morning with chicken-coops, which stink one to death; as nobody I believe thinks of changing their baskets: and all about the Ducal palace is made so very offensive by the resort of human creatures for every purpose most unworthy of so charming a place, that all enjoyment of its beauties is rendered difficult to a person of any delicacy ”

“ On both banks, façades altogether charming and beautifully diversified succeed one another without interruption. After an architecture of the Renaissance with its columns comes a palace of the Middle Ages in Gothic Arab style, of which the Ducal Palace is the prototype, with its balconies, lancet windows, trefoils, and acroteria. Further along is a façade adorned with marble placques of various colors, garnished with medallions and consoles ”

“ Street, for instance, glances hastily at the façade of the Ducal Palace—so hastily that he does not even see what its pattern is, and misses the alternation of red and black in the centres of its squares—and yet he instantly ventures on an opinion on the chronology of its capitals, which is one of the most complicated and difficult subjects in the whole range of Gothic archæology. ”

“ In his suggestive work upon Italy, Taine has vividly described the effect of a first sight of the Ducal Palace. "Like a magnificent jewel in a brilliant setting, it effaces its surroundings," he writes. "Never has like architecture been seen. All here is novel. You feel yourself drawn out of the conventional; you realize that there is an entire world outside the Classic or Gothic forms which we impose on ourselves and endlessly repeat ”

“ They are never drawn singly, or as the principal subject, nor can they be. The building which faces the Ducal Palace on the opposite side of the Piazzetta is celebrated among architects, but it is not familiar to our eyes; it is painted only incidentally, for the completion, not the subject, of a Venetian scene; and even the Renaissance arcades of St. Mark’s Place, though frequently painted, are always treated as a mere avenue to its Byzantine church and colossal tower. ”

“ We see the great master in one of his happy moods like a strong man bending to play with his children. In addition to Doge Grimani’s ceremonial portrait there exists an unrestored fresco by his hand in the Ducal Palace. ”

“ The house and park are open every week-day to the public, and many thousands of people each year avail themselves of the privileges so freely granted by the generous owner. Sightseers pour into the ducal palace, with its gilded casements and princely saloons, just as if the place belonged to them instead of to the Duke of Devonshire. It is open for them to enjoy, and all their pleasures are prepared for them. They can inspect the carvings by Grinling Gibbons, the [Pg 263] masterpieces of Landseer, and Sir Joshua Reynolds’ picture of the beautiful Duchess ”

“ They occur on the 241 Ducal Palace, on the Casa d’ Oro, and, some years back, were still standing on the Fondaco de’ Turchi; but the majority of the Gothic Palaces have the plain dog-tooth cornice under the tiled projecting roof (Vol. I. Chap. XIV. § IV.) ; and the highly decorated parapet is employed only on the tops of walls which surround courts or gardens, and which, without such decoration, would have been utterly devoid of interest. Fig. ”

“ If one part always answers accurately to another part, it is sure to be a bad building; and the greater and more conspicuous the irregularities, the greater the chances are that it is a good one. For instance, in the Ducal Palace, of which a rough woodcut is given in Chap. ”

“ Here is everything to make such a paradise delightful. In the garden I saw a rose grafted on an orange-tree. There was much topiary-work, and columns in architecture about the hedges. The Duke has added an ample laboratory, over against which stands a fort on a hill, where they told us his treasure is kept. In this palace the Duke ordinarily resides, living with his Swiss guards, after the frugal Italian way, and even selling what he can spare of his wines, at the cellar under his very house, wicker bottles dangling over even the chief entrance into the Palace, serving for a vintner’s bush. ”

“ Thousands of young men, with compressed lip and moistened eye, lean against those marble pillars, lost in thought, and almost excuse even the demoniac and blood-thirsty mercilessness of Danton, Marat, and Robespierre. These palaces are a perpetual stimulus and provocative to governmental aggression. There they stand, in all their gorgeousness, empty, swept, and garnished. They are resplendently beautiful. They are supplied with every convenience, every luxury. King and Emperor dwelt there. Why should not the President? Hence the palace becomes the home of the Republican President. ”

“ Inside, the rooms are large and lofty, and the stairs of greyish marble or even wood; but neither in doors or out are there any fine statues or sculptures.
The Palace of the governor is as I before said, a magnificent building—one that would be an ornament to the finest city in the world. It is built in the form of a horse-shoe, with a handsome cupola in the centre: the portico, as well as both the wings, is supported upon columns. The internal arrangements are as bad as can possibly be imagined; the supper-room being, for instance, a story higher than the ball-room. ”

“ And right in the centre of it all is the Forbidden City, enclosing with its high pink walls the palaces which are full of warm-blooded Manchu concubines, sleek eunuchs who speak in wheedling tones, and is always hot with intrigue. At the gates of the Palace lounge bow and jingal-armed Imperial guards. Inside is the Son of Heaven himself, the Emperor imprisoned in his own Palace by the Empress Mother, who is as masterful as any man who ever lived.... ”

“ THE NIGHTINGALE
AFTER A FAIRY TALE BY
HANS ANDERSEN
There was no more beautiful thing in the world than the palace of the emperor of China. It was built of the very finest porcelain, delicate and fragile as an egg-shell. The people, high and low, who dwelt in that palace moved with the utmost grace and care lest they should break anything, and in this they had more admiration for the extreme beauty of the place than fear of being trampled upon by the emperor for any damage caused by clumsiness. The palace garden was so big that not even the head gardener could tell you where it ended. ”

“ The name of fortress would be more appropriate than any other, for the Old Palace; it is a great mass of stone, without columns, without frontal, without order of architecture. Time has gilded the walls with beautiful vermilion tints which the pure blue of the sky sets off marvelously, and the whole structure has that haughty and romantic aspect which accords well with the idea that one forms for oneself of that old Palace of the Seigneurie, the witness, since the date of its erection in the thirteenth century, of so many intrigues, tumults, violent acts, and crimes. ”

“ These decorations were continued from the portal along the beautiful gallery that led to the palace. The palace itself, whose apartments had been adorned and furnished with royal magnificence, was entered by a very elegant porch. The grand feasting-hall, with its Gothic architecture, its colored glass, its high chimney-piece covered with escutcheons and surmounted by a statue of Saint-Remi, its portraits of all the kings of France, was resplendent. Three tables were to be set in the royal feasting-hall,—that of the King, that of the Dauphiness, and that of the Duchess of Berry. ”

“ The modern portions of the Palace are entirely commonplace and cheerful. The east wing, visible from where I am seated writing, might have been designed by Baron Haussmann: a long stretch of yellow façade—dazzling to the sight just now, in the morning sunshine—with a French roof, of slate, and a box of gay-tinted flowers in each of its countless windows.
Behind the Palace there is a large and very lovely garden, reserved to the uses of the Royal Household; and beyond that, the Dunayskiy Prospekt, a park that covers about sixty acres, and is open to the public. ”

“ In general the architecture of the palace presents at first glance a coherent unit, though in [Pg 351] reality it is of several epochs. Its furnishings within are of different styles and periods, not all of them of the best. Slender gold chairs, false reproductions of those of the time of Louis XV, and some deplorable tapestries huddle close upon elegant "bergères" of Louis XVI, and sofas, tables and bronzes of master artists and craftsmen are mingled with cheap castings unworthy of a stage setting in a music hall. ”

“ As did Charles X, Napoleon III ceased to be sovereign of the French by enacting the final scene in his royal career in the Palais de Saint Cloud. Never again was the palace to give shelter to a French monarch. The empress left precipitately after the disaster of Woerth, and two months after the torch of arson made a ruin of all the splendour of the palace and its [Pg 239] dependencies. The inhabitants of the little city, which had grown up around the confines of the palace, fled in refuge to Versailles during the armistice. Scarcely an old house was preserved in all the town. ”

“ The whole building is 240 feet long. In the centre of the front, which looks northward, is an arch 10 feet wide, leading into what was once the courtyard of the building. The other wings of the quadrangle are in hopeless ruin. To the south of the House of Pigeons is another small courtyard enclosed once on the east and west by buildings, with a mound on the south side up which runs a well-preserved stairway. At the south-west corner of the Governor's Palace is a large truncated pyramid between 60 and 70 feet high and about 270 feet at the base. ”