Venice, Italy ｜ Italian Renaissance ｜ A Brief History of Venice and the Doge Palace

The Doge's Palace is attached to the renowned Basilica San Marco. As before the Basilica allowed entrance to commoners, it was the Doge's private chapel. This palace, like the Basilica, is stunning in its display of eastern influence. From the Turkish-inspired crenellation on the roof's edge, to the Islamic-inspired facade and white and pink patterned stonework, as well as the winged lion, a symbol of eastern origin To enter the palace, the Doge and his noble bureaucrats would climb the staircase of the giants. Atop the staircase are two giant statues, one of Mars and the other of Neptune. They were created by Jacopo Sansovino. Mars symbolizing the Roman god of war, This is a visual allusion to Venetian domination over the Adriatic Sea and beyond. This visual reference to the Maritime Republic's dominance was the stage where the Doge was crowned ruler of Venice, in front of the people in the courtyard below. Within that courtyard are two rainwater collection cisterns, used for the palace's water supply, a necessity on an island surrounded by salt water. It's worth zooming out from this phenomenal structure just for a moment, to see how influenced it is by both the East and West through religion, commerce, as well as shared Roman heritage. As we step back from the Doge's palace, we can better understand him as simply a figurehead who ratified the great council and committee's decisions, yet possessed no real power himself. The Doge couldn't live in his own palace, he had to stop all business activity, he couldn't meet alone with foreigners, and his great council had to always be able to hear what he was saying. He was at times thought of as a prisoner of the state, albeit a wealthy and well-connected prisoner of the state. The Venetian political life was a theater of social excess, and the most adorned stages were its palaces, none more exquisite than the Doge's palace for its state propaganda paintings by Veronese, Tintoretto, Titian, as well as numerous others. Perhaps no room of the Doge's palace is more uniquely Venetian than the great hall of the great council. Sitting behind the all-powerful was Tintoretto's masterpiece, made on 50 canvases sewn together the size of a tennis court, while the hall itself is built architecturally on the model of a ship's keel, needing no internal support beams to interrupt the room which set 2,000 council members making the decisions for Venice's future. This room offers an incredible display of Venetian's creative profundity in their art, architecture, and so too political structure.