Venice - Italy - page 313

The Secret Life of the Doges
If there's one Venetian encounter worthy of a splurge, it's the Secret
Itineraries tour (bookings only by phone at % 041-5209070; € 15)

of the Palazzo Ducale. Led by an expert on Venetian history and culture,
the tour takes a small group of visitors to some of the many rooms in the
palace that are kept locked to the general public; these are the secret
chambers, passages, and stairways that allowed the machinery of the
Venetian state to keep working independent of the luxury show that
greeted official visitors to the palace. The tour reveals how the Doge was
always carefully watched and supervised by an all-powerful Council of Ten,
despite the fact that the immensely wealthy Doge was personally respon-
sible for the upkeep of the palace. You'll also discover how Venice thrived
on secrets, how spies and diplomats gathered valuable information from
rival states, and how documents recording this information were kept—in
triplicate—in the offices and halls of the palace.
For many, the highlight of the tour is learning more about Casanova,
who escaped from the prisons here after blackmailing his guard and enlist-
ing the aid of a priest who had been imprisoned for fathering a string of
children. The tour also introduces you to clever psychological tortures:
Prisoners were strategically jailed where they could see and hear terrible
violence being done to another accused offender—this ensured that those
next in line for the same punishment would confess more readily. You'll
not only explore those secret rooms where the state machinery was oper-
ated by an army of bookkeepers and administrators, but—in the roof over
the largest room in the palace—you'll get a sense of the complex archi-
tectural solutions keeping it all together.

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On the ceiling is Tintoretto's Triumph of Venice (1587-97), a beautiful exercise
in forced perspective, with earth in the distance, beyond the heavenly scene. For
the best view of this ceiling fresco, stand near the doorway that leads into the Sala
della Quatro Ponte. From here you can pass through quickly into the Chambers
of the Council of Ten, where there is more work by Veronese in the room where
judgments were uttered against an accused. In the adjoining Sala della Bussola,
a wooden stairway entrance leads to every floor in the palace. The room itself is
dedicated to justice. It was here that Venice's version of the CIA met to discuss
matters of state security.
An extensive armory fills the next few rooms, where you should pause to enjoy
the views over the city from the open windows. From the armory, head down to
the L-shaped liagò, where you'll find a pair of marble sculptures of Adam and Eve
by Antonio Rizzo. From the liagò, enter the Sala del Maggior Consiglio (Hall of
the Great Council), a massive space filled with magnificent paintings combining
mythical, religious, and Venetian imagery; it's also where you can't miss the largest
oil painting on earth, Paradiso by Tintoretto. Measuring 23m (75 ft.) in length, it