[with
apologies to Elizabeth Barrett Browning]
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| Campanile (left), Doge's Palace, Prison (right) |
Many
of the cities of the world (especially in Europe) are proud of
touting their glorious historical achievements. Many of these
achievements are a marvel to behold, artistically, musically,
architecturally. What is often glossed over is the dark side of what
these achievements are too often based on—wealth, often ill gotten
and on the backs of those either vying for power or opposed to it.
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wall paintings -
ceiling with bas relief
and frescoes |
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| Doge in the company of saintly figures |
The
city-state of the Venetian Republic under the governorship of the
Doges is no exception. The walls and ceilings of the glorious Ducal
Palace are adorned with numerous paintings and bas-relief sculpture
bespeaking the wealth and power of this place. Not of few of these
images display the sanction of the Church underpinning the power of
the Doges, resplendently gowned and surrounded by saints and other
heavenly figures. Of course, during the thousand years of Venice's
ascendency (8th to 18th Centuries) the
supremacy of the Vatican was paramount and all secular European
leaders had to claim their legitimacy as deriving from God through
the Catholic Church. Thus, the Doges are depicted in various devout
poses—even to the Church's sanctioning of war (the Doge humbly
receiving a sword from a Church dignitary, for example).
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Doge receiving the sword of war from possibly the Pope
or a high ranking Church official |
***************************************
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| crossbow |
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| arrows |
The tour through the Doge's Palace includes the armory, a magnificent display of the different methods of killing people available at the time (it is a quite startlingly extensive display of weaponry: swords, pikes, spears, crossbows, bludgeons, knives, armor, and guns of all kinds). As I stood gazing upon all this hardware, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's little sonnet, with a little twist, popped into my head while viewing the proudly displayed instruments of death and advancement of Ducal power and wealth.
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| helmet and bludgeons |
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don't know what these beauties are called,
some look like machetes on long handles |
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| cannon |
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| battleaxes |
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| long barrel pistol |
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| multiple barrel rifle - kind of a long six + gun |
***********************************
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| inner yard of the prison |
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Ponte dei Sospiri
(Bridge of Sighs) |
Finally,
the palace tour concludes with a visit to the prison. It's impossible
to overlook the splendor of the palace itself contrasted to the
squalor of the adjacent prison, just across the Ponte
dei Sospiri (Bridge of
Sighs). The bridge gets its name from the sighs (and probably moans
and groans) of convicted prisoners many of whom knew they would never
see the light of day again as they crossed the narrow bridge into a
black hole of oblivion.
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| a multi-man cell |
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| heavily barred window |
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| another cell for several prisoners |
I
wonder if they, too, perhaps gazed out through the latticework at San
Giorgio Maggiore, probably
for the last time.
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| San Giorgio Maggiore through the stone latticework (the only windows) on the Bridge of Sighs |
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