, was of course known as the
"Palazzo Vecchio." That fabric, however, still occupied the principal
position in Venice. The new Council Chamber had been erected by the side
of it toward the Sea; but there was not then the wide quay in front, the
Riva dei Schiavoni, which now renders the Sea Facade as important as
that to the Piazzetta. There was only a narrow walk between the pillars
and the water; and the old palace of Ziani still faced the Piazzetta,
and interrupted, by its decrepitude, the magnificence of the square
where the nobles daily met.

Every increase of the beauty of the new palace rendered the discrepancy
between it and the companion building more painful; and then began to
arise in the minds of all men a vague idea of the necessity of
destroying the old palace, and completing the front of the Piazzetta
with the same splendor as the Sea Facade. But no such sweeping measure
of renovation had been contemplated by the Senate when they first formed
the plan of their new Council Chamber. First a single additional room,
then a gateway, then a larger room; but all considered merely as
necessary additions to the palace, not as involving the entire
reconstruction of the ancient edifice. The exhaustion of the treasury,
and the shadows upon the political horizon, rendered it more imprudent
to incur the vast additional expense which such a project involved; and
the Senate, fearful of itself, and desirous to guard against the
weakness of its own enthusiasm, passed a decree, like the effort of a
man fearful of some strong temptation to keep his thoughts averted from
the point of danger. It was a decree, not merely that the old palace
should not be rebuilt, but that no one should propose rebuilding it. The
feeling of the desirableness of doing so was too strong to permit fair
discussion, and the Senate knew that to bring forward such a motion was
to carry it.

The decree, thus passed in order to guard against their own weakness,
forbade any one to speak of rebuilding the old palace, under the penalty
of a thousand ducats. But they had rated their own enthusiasm too low;
there was a man among them whom the loss of a thousand ducats could not
deter from proposing what he believed to be for the good of the state.
Some excuse was given him for bringing forward the motion, by a fire
which occurred in 1419, and which injured both the Church of St. Mark's,
and part of the old palace fronting the Piazzetta. What followed, I
shal