l relate in the words of Sanuto.

"Therefore they set themselves with all diligence and care to repair and
adorn sumptuously, first God's house; but in the Prince's house things
went on more slowly, for it did not please the Doge to restore it in the
form in which it was before; and they could not rebuild it altogether in
a better manner, so great was the parsimony of these old fathers;
because it was forbidden by laws, which condemned in a penalty of a
thousand ducats any one who should propose to throw down the old palace,
and to rebuild it more richly and with greater expense.

"But the Doge, who was magnanimous, and who desired above all things
what was honorable to the city, had the thousand ducats carried into the
Senate Chamber, and then proposed that the palace should be rebuilt;
saying: that, since the late fire had ruined in great part the Ducal
habitation (not only his own private palace, but all the places used for
public business), this occasion was to be taken for an admonishment sent
from God, that they ought to rebuild the palace more nobly, and in a way
more befitting the greatness to which, by God's grace, their dominions
had reached; and that his motive in proposing this was neither ambition,
nor selfish interest; that, as for ambition, they might have seen in the
whole course of his life, through so many years, that he had never done
anything for ambition, either in the city, or in foreign business; but
in all his actions had kept justice first in his thoughts, and then the
advantage of the state, and the honor of the Venetian name; and that, as
far as regarded his private interest, if it had not been for this
accident of the fire, he would never have thought of changing anything
in the palace into either a more sumptuous or a more honorable form; and
that during the many years in which he had lived in it, he had never
endeavored to make any change, but had always been content with it as
his predecessors had left it; and that he knew well that, if they took
in hand to build it as he exhorted and besought them, being now very
old, and broken down with many toils, God would call him to another life
before the walls were raised a pace from the ground. And that therefore
they might perceive that he did not advise them to raise this building
for his own convenience, but only for the honor of the city and its
Dukedom; and that the good of it would never be felt by him, but by his
successors." ...

Then h