El recorrido de la visita

El recorrido de la visita sugerido por el museo no sigue linealmente los pisos individuales del edificio, sino que traza un itinerario que sube y baja cruzándolos varias veces. El recorrido empieza en el Museo, en la planta baja, donde se encuentran los servicios al público y, pasando a través del extraordinario patio, continúa hacia las salas superiores del Palacio, donde se visitan las preciosas habitaciones del Apartamento Ducal, en el primer piso, y las Salas Institucionales, que se extienden entre el segundo piso y el piso de las Logias. El recorrido se concluye con la visita a la Armería y las Cárceles.

También están los Recorridos Secretos del Palacio Ducal y los Tesoros escondidos del Doge, que no forman parte del recorrido habitual del Palacio, sino que son rutas especiales que solo se pueden visitar bajo condiciones específicas.

Museo dell’Opera

After the mid-19th century, the Palace seemed to be in such a state of decay that its very survival was in question; thus from 1876 a major restoration plan was launched. The work involved the two facades and the capitals belonging to the ground-floor arcade and the upper loggia: 42 of these, which appeared to be in a specially dilapidated state, were removed and replaced by copies. The originals, some of which were masterpieces of Venetian sculpture of the 14th and 15th centuries, were placed, together with other sculptures from the facades, in an area specifically set aside for this purpose: the Museo dell’Opera.
After undergoing thorough and careful restoration works, they are now exhibited, on their original columns, in these 6 rooms of the museum, which are traversed by an ancient wall in great blocks of stone, a remnant of an earlier version of the Palace.

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Courtyard and the Loggias

The courtyard offers a view of the two oldest wings of the Palace—more austere and simple in style—and the Renaissance wing, which features richer decoration and culminates, at the far end, with the Giants’ Staircase, the ancient formal entrance. At its top stand two colossal statues of Mars and Neptune, sculpted by Sansovino in 1565. The staircase, designed by Antonio Rizzo, stands next to the arch dedicated to Doge Francesco Foscari (1423–1457), which links the Giants’ Staircase to the Porta della Carta through which visitors today leave the palace

The loggia level allows visitors to walk along the eastern, southern, and western wings of the Palace, offering striking views over the courtyard and Piazzetta San Marco. From here, the tour continues, from the Censors’ Staircase to the Gold Staircase, leading you to the upper floors, passing through the Renaissance wing. Along this route are several embedded “bocche di leone” (lion’s mouths), where, starting from the late 16th century, anonymous denunciations of crimes or corruption could be submitted.

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Institutional Chambers

The tour through the various Institutional Chambers in the Palace begins in the Square Atrium. These were the rooms which housed the organs of a political and judicial administrative which was the envy of Europe for centuries, due not only to its immutability (in spite of the absence of a written constitution) but also to its ability to resist the passage of time and still maintain social peace and harmony.

You will pass through the chambers of all the main organs of government – the Great Council, the Senate and the Collegio – and also visit those used by the main judicial bodies within the Venetian Republic, from the Council of Ten to the so-called Quarantie (Councils of Forty).
In all of the rooms, the decor is carefully chosen and designed not only to indicate the role of the bodies who met within them, but also to celebrate the virtues of the State.

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The Picture Gallery

The current rearrangement of the Sala della Quarantia Criminale, Sala dei Cuoi and Sala del Magistrato alle Leggi fits into this tradition together with «institutional» decorative apparatus and other easel paintings from private collections.
In reference to the secular presence of Flemish paintings in the Palazzo, it has been decided to show in the Sala dei Cuoi some Flemish works, among which there is the only survivor of those offered for public use from 1615: The Apocalyptic vision already attributed to Civetta and today more appropriately attributed to an anonymous follower of Bosch.
In the other rooms are exhibited masterpieces by Giovanni Bellini, Carpaccio, Titian and Giambattista Tiepolo, absolute masters of Venetian art.

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Prisons

The visit to the Prisons begins with a small descending staircase leading from the Sala del Magistrato alle Leggi into a narrow corridor, one of the two passageways of the famous Bridge of Sighs.

From the bridge, visitors enter the New Prisons, a 16th-century building designed for incarceration, complete with rooms for magistrates. Built on the other side of the canal to the side of the Palace, the structure was intended to improve the conditions for prisoners with larger and more light-filled and airy cells.
For its time, the New Prisons represented one of the earliest, if not the very first, examples in Europe of a standalone, purpose-built state prison designed as a single-use block structure.

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Armoury

The rooms of the Armoury contain a valuable historical collection of weapons and armaments from several sources. The core of the collection is already documented as existing in the 14th century; and at the time of the Republic the Armoury, under the control of the Council of Ten, was stocked with weapons that would be readily available for the Palace’s guards. On particularly delicate or important occasions, these guards might be joined by the arsenalotti, the highly-trained workforce from the shipyards of the Arsenale (e.g. when a Doge died, all the gates to the Palace were sealed and placed under the guard of the arsenalotti).
Comprising various valuable pieces, the collection of arms was partially dispersed after the fall of the Republic, but it still contains over 2000 exhibits.

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Recorridos especiales

También están los Recorridos Secretos del Palacio Ducal y los Tesoros escondidos del Doge, que no forman parte del recorrido habitual del Palacio, sino que son rutas especiales que solo se pueden visitar bajo condiciones específicas.

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