Reached by this staircase is a second, the so-called "Golden Staircase" ([Plate LXIX.]), which derives its name either from the fact that it was formerly accessible only to those whose names were entered in the "Golden Book"—a list of the Venetian nobility,—or from the richness of its decoration, and this leads to the great apartments in the interior. It was designed by Jacapo Sansovino, and completed in 1577.
| DUCAL PALACE | FIREPLACE IN DOGE'S BED-CHAMBER |
Owing to a great fire which gutted a great part of the Palace in 1574, the internal appearance of the council chambers and the state apartments of the doges was completely changed, and a splendid series of early Paduan and Venetian paintings which adorned the walls of the chief rooms was destroyed. The interiors were then redecorated with their present magnificence, some idea of which may be gained from a mere enumeration of those who shared in the work. As architects there were Palladio, Sansovino, Scammozzi, Lombardi and Antonio da Ponte; as sculptors and decorators Vittoria, Aspetti, Segala, Campagna, Bombarda and di Silo; as painters Titian, Paul Veronese, Tintoret, Vivarini, Palma, Tiepolo, and many others; so that each room became, as Ruskin has said, "a colossal casket of priceless treasure."
| PLATE LXXI | SALA DELLO SCRUTINO: DUCAL PALACE |
It will, however, be unnecessary to describe in detail each apartment illustrated by our engravings, even did space permit. Intended as spacious audience chambers to afford dignified and magnificent surroundings for the stately scenes which were to be enacted within them, they are all enriched in the same general style, with panelling, carving, and gilded mouldings of the later Renaissance; the architectonic decorations being chiefly designed as a setting for the multitude of noble pictures.