The most beautiful specimens of the civil and domestic architecture of Italy in the Gothic period are probably to be found in Venice, the richest and most peaceful of Italian cities during the Middle Ages. It is necessary to speak of the buildings of Venice, or more correctly, of the Venetian Province, by themselves, since its architecture is quite distinct both in origin and character from any other found in Northern Italy. It was not derived from the old Lombard Round Gothic, but from the richer and more graceful Byzantine. True to its parentage, it partook in after ages far more of the Southern Saracenic style than of the Northern Gothic; still it cannot be classed as either Byzantine or Saracenic, but only as Gothic treated with an Eastern feeling, and enriched with many details borrowed from Eastern styles. [Illustration: 527. Central Part of the Façade of the Doge’s Palace, Venice. (From Cicognara.)] The largest and most prominent civic example of Venetian Gothic is the Doge’s Palace (Woodcut No. 527), first built in the commencement of the 9th century, burnt down in 976 and 1106, rebuilt 1116, and restored and enlarged by Ziani, whose work was gradually pulled down between 1300 and 1424 to make way for the existing Palace (or at least the Gothic portion of it facing the sea and the Piazzetta). The earliest portion is the S.E. angle. The S.W. angle was built about 1340, down to the tenth column (ground storey); the remainder, including the Porta della Carta (about 1424), was erected by Bartolomeo Bon and his son, the architects of the Cà d’Oro. Though many people are inclined to consider its general effect unsatisfactory, an attempt has recently been made to exalt it above the Parthenon, and all that was great and beautiful in Greece, Egypt, or Gothic Europe. There are indeed few buildings of which it is so difficult to judge calmly, situated as it is, attached to the basilica of St. Mark, facing the beautiful library of Sansovino, and looking on the one hand into the piazza of St. Mark’s, and on the other across the water to the churches and palaces that cover the islands. It is, in fact, the centre of the most beautiful architectural group that adorns any city of Europe, or of the world—richer than almost any other building in historical associations, and in a locality hallowed, especially to an Englishman, by the poetry of Shakespeare. All this spreads a halo around and over the building, which may furnish ample excuse for those who blindly praise even its deformities. But the soberer judgment of the critic must not be led astray by such feelings, and while giving credit for the picturesque situation of this building and a certain grandeur in its design, he is compelled wholly to condemn its execution. The two arcades which constitute the base are, from their extent and the beauty of their details, as fine as anything of their class executed during the Middle Ages. There is also a just and pleasing