What a world of associations must rush through the mind as one traverses the halls of this magnificent palace! What scenes of splendid gayety are called up by the pictures of the luxurious and splendor-loving men and women of the Republic! And then, when reading this inscription, we recall that other scene, the tragic extreme; and between these two types of association there are hundreds of others, which fill the distance between them with every shade of sentiment from "grave to gay." But just here we can only remember that "the Council of Ten was hastily summoned. The minor conspirators were first executed. Then the Doge, stripped of his insignia of office, was beheaded in the closed palace; and one of the Council, taking the bloody sword to the space between the Columns, brandished it, saying, 'The terrible doom hath fallen on the traitor.'" We are glad that the steps on which Faliero fell no longer exist, and that no such scene has been enacted on the splendid Staircase of the Giants, over which Mars and Neptune now preside, and where, since 1485, the Doges have been crowned with the formula, "Accipe coronam ducalem ducatus Venetorum." The author of the "Story of Italy" says: "It was a serious matter to be Doge of Venice. Five of the first fifty Doges abdicated; five were banished with their eyes put out; nine were deposed; five were massacred, and two fell in battle." We remember that in the Sala dello Scrutinio is a picture of the Triumphal Arch erected in 1694, in honor of Francesco Morosini, called Il Peloponnesiaco from his conquest of the Morea, and whose name, alas! is now oftenest recalled in connection with the destruction of the Parthenon. {352} One of the best works of Palma Giovane is also here,--"The Last Judgment," in one part of which he represents his mistress in heaven, and in another she is consigned to hell. "The Taking of Zara" is one of the wonderful pictures by Tintoretto. Charles Blanc says that he was possessed by the genius of battles, and in depicting such scenes seemed to be himself engaged in the assault. This work is full of fire. It is confused; but here and there a single picturesque figure stands out from the heroic disorder of this tumultuous story. Blanc relates that an abbé who acted as his guide in the Ducal Palace called his attention to the fact that the portrait of Marino Faliero did not appear in "The Taking of Zara," which should have made his name immortal as much as his tragic death has done; but the Senate forbade Tintoretto to place him on his canvas, since his head had fallen by the hand of the executioner. Blanc asks: "If the Doge had betrayed the Republic, was that a reason why the Republic in its turn should betray the truth?"