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V14646
THE
CAMPANILE, DOGES' PALACE
AND THE PRISON, VENICE
We are on a broad lagoon, or opening of the Adriatic Sea. The
Grand Canal of Venice comes winding through the city and enters the
lagoon a short distance from here at our left. A part of the
city is behind us at our left, but the most famous of the old
buildings are in the district ahead. The low island ground is
entirely covered with buildings. Natural channels and artificial
canals wind in and out in every direction among the closely-packed
houses, shops and churches. There are countless paved streets,
too crossing the channels by bridges, but the streets are narrow and
crooked, and used only by pedestrians.
There are no horses in Venice; no carriages. Gondolas, like this
one; long slender, black-painted boats with both ends narrow, curving
up out of the water, together with motor boats and launches, are used
by everybody, where walking is not practicable. The gondolier
stands and uses a single long oar. Heavy freight is transported
in flat-bottomed scows.
That building with the beautiful marble colonnades along the front is
the palace of the Doges, the rulers of Venice in the days when she was
an independent republic. The architecture is an Italian
variation of the Gothic style. The building at the right used to
be a prison. A canal separates the two, crossed at its outlet by
a modern public bridge, and we have just a glimpse of a covered
passageway between the two buildings. That is the famous Bridge
of Sighs. Across the prisoners were led to the Ducal Court to
hear sentence of death pronounced upon them. Above the roof of
the Doges' palace we get a glimpse of the central dome of the Cathedral
of St. Mark. The cathedral bells are hung in that detached tower
(campanile) at the left.
Copyright by the Keystone View Company
