e said, that 'in order, as he had always done, to observe the
laws, he had brought with him the thousand ducats which had been
appointed as the penalty for proposing such a measure, so that he might
prove openly to all men that it was not his own advantage that he
sought, but the dignity of the state.' There was no one (Sanuto goes on
to tell us) who ventured, or desired to oppose the wishes of the Doge;
and the thousand ducats were unanimously devoted to the expenses of the
work. "And they set themselves with much diligence to the work; and the
palace was begun in the form and manner in which it is at present seen;
but, as Mocenigo[51] had prophesied, not long after, he ended his life,
and not only did not see the work brought to a close, but hardly even
begun."

There are one or two expressions in the above extracts which, if they
stood alone, might lead the reader to suppose that the whole palace had
been thrown down and rebuilt. We must however remember, that, at this
time, the new Council Chamber, which had been one hundred years in
building, was actually unfinished, the council had not yet sat in it;
and it was just as likely that the Doge should then propose to destroy
and rebuild it, as in this year, 1853, it is that any one should propose
in our House of Commons to throw down the new Houses of Parliament,
under the title of the "old palace," and rebuild them....

It was in the year 1422 that the decree passed to rebuild the palace;
Mocenigo died in the following year, and Francesco Foscari was elected
in his room. The great Council Chamber was used for the first time on
the day when Foscari entered the Senate as Doge--the 3rd of April, 1423,
according to the "Caroldo Chronicle;" the 23d, which is probably
correct, by an anonymous MS., No. 60, in the Correr Museum; and the
following year, on the 27th of March, the first hammer was lifted up
against the old palace of Ziani. That hammer stroke was the first act of
the period properly called the "Renaissance." It was the knell of the
architecture of Venice--and of Venice herself.

The central epoch of her life was past; the decay had already begun; I
date its commencement from the death of Mocenigo. A year had not yet
elapsed since that great Doge had been called to his account; his
patriotism, always sincere, had been in this instance mistaken; in his
zeal for the honor of future Venice, he had forgotten what was due to
the Venice of long ago. A thousand palaces