The S. façade, like the W., is composed of a lower arcade and an upper gallery whose columns support the massive walls of the upper storeys, a daring inversion of architectural tradition which is not wholly satisfying. The marble lozenge-shaped incrustation, however, relieves the heaviness. Indeed, from a fourteenth-century drawing[92] in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, it is possible the upper storeys may have been originally set back. The squat appearance of the columns of the arcade is due to the raising of the level of the Piazzetta, which in the days when the palace was built was some thirty inches below the present pavement.[93] The original building was approached by a stylobate of three steps which greatly added to its dignity and proportion. Under this arcade the Venetian nobility were accustomed to meet and talk of public affairs, for meetings in their own houses would have roused the suspicion of the Ten. When the patricians, as they paced up and down, raised their eyes to the capitals just above their heads they saw a series of sculptures which for beauty of design, richness of invention and craftsmanship were unsurpassed in Europe. Even to-day, largely renewed as they are, they will repay careful inspection. The subjects are of the usual symbolical types: children, birds, famous emperors and kings, the virtues and sins, the signs of the Zodiac, the crafts, the seven ages of man under celestial influences, the months and seasons, famous lawgivers--all treated with the _naïveté_ and didactic purpose so characteristic of Gothic artists. Most of the carvings bear inscriptions which make the interpretation of the subjects comparatively easy. The artists, however, who wrought the fifteenth-century capitals on the W. façade seem to have been lacking in invention, for of the thirteen columns southwards from the Porta della Carta, six are copied from those wrought by the fourteenth-century masons on the S. façade. [Illustration: PONTE DEI SOSPIRI.] The gallery above is beyond criticism; for originality and grace it is unique in Europe. The eye never tires of its beauty; it adds distinction to the whole structure, and it gives an element of peaceful repose and conscious security so markedly in contrast to the grim civic fortresses of Florence and Siena and other faction-ridden Italian States. The four raised windows of the main storey on the S. are due to the fact that the builders of the Hall of the Great Council cared less for external symmetry than for internal convenience. The two balconied windows, one in each façade, were added soon after the completion of the Porta della Carta. Before 1577 all the windows of the great chamber were decorated with Gothic triforia. It is now proposed to restore them, though the project meets with much opposition.