The following quotation is taken from an anonymous chronicler of the sixteenth or seventeenth century, quoted by Lazzarini, and gives some further details of the end of Marino Faliero, though it is impossible to guarantee them as wholly trustworthy:-- ‘You must know that when this Marino Faliero was condemned to death, the tocsin was sounded; and that bell which rang for him was never rung again. It was put away by the Council of Ten, who ordained that if any one should propose that it should ever be rung again hereafter, his head should be cut off. And wit ye that the said bell was not at that time in the bell-tower of Saint Mark, but was in the palace; and its use was to give a signal to the “pregadi”; and afterwards it was put out of use, and taken away and hidden. However, not very long after that, it was hung in the bell-tower of Saint Mark’s, and it is the bell which has no tongue, no rope, and no lever; and the said bell is in the shape of a hat, as may be seen to the present day; and is reserved for some like princely occasion.’ The body of the unfortunate man was laid upon a matting, with the head at the feet, in one of the halls of the ducal palace, and remained there during twenty-four hours, during which time the people were freely admitted to gaze on the mournful spectacle. On the evening of the eighteenth, without honours and without any procession, it was laid in a coffin, and taken by boat as far as San Giovanni e Paolo, to be laid in the tomb of the Faliero family. This was an enormous sarcophagus of Istria stone, of truly huge dimensions, upon which were carved the arms of the Falieri. In 1812 Giovanni Casoni, a student who was collecting all possible information regarding the Arsenal and other principal points in Venice, was in the church of San Giovanni e Paolo when this sarcophagus was opened. It was quite full of human skeletons, placed in layers, which were very carefully taken out and laid upon the pavement of the court, in order to be transported elsewhere. When almost at the end of the operation, a decapitated skeleton was found, with the skull between the legs. Casoni says that he felt instantly, with intimate certainty, that the remains were those of the Doge, Marino Faliero. ‘At that moment,’ he says, ‘I was far from recalling memories of the Doge, and did not in the least suspect that I should ever have found his ashes, or held his skull in my hands.’ With admirable simplicity the writer remarks that it was only his regard for the regulations of the Health Office, and his reluctance to get into trouble with the representatives of the city government, which prevented him from immediately taking possession of the skull, and carrying it off. Lord Byron, in 1819, knew nothing of this discovery, and making inquiries about the tomb of the beheaded Doge in San Giovanni e Paolo, a priest showed him a small tomb built into the wall, and tried to persuade [Illustration: THE TOMBS IN SS. GIOVANNI E PAOLO]