The largest and most important of these apartments is the Hall of the Great Council ([Plate LXX.]), in which the entire body of the Venetian nobility met to consider questions of state. This immense room is fifty-five yards long, twenty-eight yards wide, and forty-seven feet high. The greatest of the Venetian masters were employed upon the ceiling; the entire east wall is occupied by Tintoretto's "Paradise"—said to be the largest oil painting in the world—and the walls are adorned with portraits of the doges and scenes from the history of the republic.
In the Sala dello Scrutino or Voting Hall ([Plate LXXI.]), the forty-one nobles were elected by whom the doges were afterwards chosen. Opposite the entrance is a representation of the triumphal arch erected by the senate in 1694 to commemorate the conquest of Morea.
The Sala del Senato ([Plate LXXII.]), was the hall in which the full senate assembled in formal session. It is also called the Sala dei Pregadi because originally notice was sent to each senator to pregare or summon him to attend the meetings. Beyond this room, to the right of the throne, is an ante-chamber to the private chapel of the doges. A portion of the ceiling of this ante-chamber, executed in the seventeenth century, is shown on page 139.
The Anticollegio ([Plate LXXIII.]), or waiting room for the ambassadors, was designed by Scammozzi, and contains Paul Veronese's celebrated painting, "The Rape of Europa."
The Anticollegio leads to the Sala del Collegio ([Plate LXXIV.]), in which audiences were granted to foreign emissaries. On the raised platform stood the Doge's throne, and in the stall-like seats around it sat the state councillors.
[1] Other views of the exterior of the Ducal Palace will be found in No. 1, 1895 and No. 12, 1898 of this Series.
| PLATE LXXII | SALA DEL SENATO: DUCAL PALACE |