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Updated: May 19, 2025
The towers which remain are the Merlata Barbarigo of 1485, Merlata Tiepolo of about the same date, Merlata dell' Aspello, erected as a defence against the Turks in 1570, the gate-tower on the Piazzetta of 1649, and the Gothic Torre Lombardo of 1448, near the land gate. The walls can be walked round in a quarter of an hour, and are dominated by the Fort S. Biagio, erected by the English.
There is the ever-recurring miracle of the full moon rising, before day is dead, behind San Giorgio, spreading a path of gold on the lagoon which black boats traverse with the glow-worm lamp upon their prow; ascending the cloudless sky and silvering the domes of the Salute; pouring vitreous sheen upon the red lights of the Piazzetta; flooding the Grand Canal, and lifting the Rialto higher in ethereal whiteness; piercing but penetrating not the murky labyrinth of rio linked with rio, through which we wind in light and shadow, to reach once more the level glories and the luminous expanse of heaven beyond the Misericordia.
"Worse than that, my friends," a gondolier protested, "Andrea Foscari crossed to Maestre last night, and the dogs are even now on his heels." "Your news grows stale," croaked a hag who was passing; "go to the Piazzetta and you shall see the head of one who prayed before the altar ten minutes ago." They trooped off, eager for the spectacle. When they reached the Piazzetta, the hag was justified.
The ashen instrument bent to the power of an arm whose strength appeared to increase at will, and the movements of his body became rapid as the leaps of the greyhound. The pliant gondola obeyed, and amid a shout which passed from the Piazzetta to the Rialto, it glided ahead. If success gives force and increases the physical and moral energies, there is a fearful and certain reaction in defeat.
Before you expands the great Piazza, peopled with its various life; on your left, between the Pillars of the Piazzetta, swims the blue lagoon, and overhead climb the arches, one above another, in excesses of fantastic grace.
When I hear, when I see, the magical name I have written above these pages, it is not of the great Square that I think, with its strange basilica and its high arcades, nor of the wide mouth of the Grand Canal, with the stately steps and the well- poised dome of the Salute; it is not of the low lagoon, nor the sweet Piazzetta, nor the dark chambers of St. Mark's.
The southwest angle of the Palace was prevented only by massive shoring from falling bodily into the Piazzetta.
The wonderful church, with its low domes and bristling embroideries, the mystery of its mosaic and sculpture, looking ghostly in the tempered gloom, and the sea breeze passed between the twin columns of the Piazzetta, the lintels of a door no longer guarded, as gently as if a rich curtain were swaying there.
The tenth has symbolical figures, and is repeated in the sixth on the Piazzetta. The eleventh has vices and virtues and is repeated in the ninth on the Piazzetta. The twelfth has female heads and no lettering. The thirteenth has named rulers: Octavius, Titus, Trajan, Priam, Darius, and so forth, all crowned and ruling. The fourteenth has children and no lettering.
Subsequently they were moved to Mesembria and then to Constantinople, from which city the great Doge Dandolo brought them to Venice. They now repose in S. Salvatore beneath an altar. The west side of the Piazzetta consists of the quiet and beautiful façade of Sansovino's Old Library.
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