"Such, then, is the Ducal Palace,--a building certainly in some respects of almost unequalled beauty, but at the same time of unequal merit; its first and second stages quite perfect in their bold and nervous character, and, in the almost interminable succession of the same beautiful features in shaft and arch and tracery, forming one of the grandest proofs in the world of the exceeding value of perfect regularity, and of a repetition of good features in architecture, when it is possible to obtain it on a very large scale." The whole Palace forms three sides of an unsymmetrical hollow square, the back, or north side, abutting upon St. Mark's Church. The great internal Court (Plate LXVII.) was begun at the end of the fifteenth century, but then only partially completed. It is surrounded on the south, east and west sides by Gothic arcades of very similar style to those on the exterior. Even in the sixteenth century portion the same main outline was followed, though the detail is different. The entrance to the Courtyard, at the northwest angle adjoining St. Mark's, is through the Porta della Carta (so called because official notices were affixed to it), which was the last Gothic work added to the Palace. Across the court and opposite this entrance is a very beautiful staircase in the early-Renaissance style, built in the middle of the fifteenth century by Antonio Ricci. It is called the "Giant's Staircase" (Plate LXVIII.) from its two colossal and rather clumsy statues of Neptune and Mars. Between these statues the doges stood to be inaugurated. 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. [Illustration: 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." [Illustration: PLATE LXXI SALA DELLO SCRUTINO: DUCAL PALACE]