Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 15, 2025
and treading in the footsteps of generations of friendless and oftentimes guiltless criminals, we passed over from the Hall of Justice in the Doge's Palace, through secret passages, to the Piombi, or state prison, and thence to the Pozzi, a series of gloomy rock-hewn dungeons, where the air felt heavy with the breath of murder dignified by the name of judicial punishment, and where many a hopeless wretch had sighed out his love, his hopes, and finally his cruelly persecuted life.
Yet this law was frightful in its inexorable severity, which we cannot suppose to have been very greatly mitigated by humanity in practice, for it was really the law of the people; more terrible than Venetian -piombi- and chambers of torture was that series of living entombments which the poor man saw yawning before him in the debtors' towers of the rich.
"Let us go, then," I replied; "may I ask who you are?" "I am jailer of the San Michele prisons, where I am going to take you." The jailer of the Piombi delivered to the new governor the money belonging to me which he had in his hands. I obtained permission to make some little present to the under jailers; I then put my clothes in order, put my Bible under my arm, and departed.
There the jailer first registered my name, and then locked me up in the room appointed for me. The chambers called I Piombi consist of the upper portion of the Doge's palace, and are covered throughout with lead. Mark. Beyond the church I could discern the end of the Piazza in the distance, with an immense number of cupolas and belfries on all sides. St.
Petersburg, Benedict XII. at Rome, Joseph II. at Vienna, Frederick the Great at Sans-Souci. Imprisoned by the Inquisitors of State in the Piombi at Venice, he made, in 1755, the most famous escape in history. His Memoirs, as we have them, break off abruptly at the moment when he is expecting a safe conduct, and the permission to return to Venice after twenty years' wanderings.
"Whoever hath need to leave this cloister before the Inquiry of Venice is satisfied, shall be served by the gondola of the Piombi which waits." I Piombi! Those prisons under the leads where the heat was slow torture this was the meaning of the masked gondoliers! Surely it was the Chief of the Ten who had spoken!
Mazas is a model prison of progress; it is certain that Mazas is preferable to the piombi of Venice, and to the under-water dungeon of the Châtelet. Theoretical philanthropy has built Mazas. Nevertheless, as has been seen, Mazas leaves plenty to be desired. Let us acknowledge that from a certain point of view the temporary solitary confinement of the law-makers at Mazas does not displease us.
On this occasion Maroncelli and I had for companions six convicts, who had received sentence before we came, but no two were allowed to speak to any other two in the group. Two of them, I found, had been my neighbours in the Piombi at Venice. We were conducted by the guards to the post assigned us, and then brought back after mass in the same manner, each couple into their former dungeon.
Gabbia means a "cage;" and there can be no question that certain apartments were at this time added at the top of the palace and on the Rio Facade, which were to be used as prisons. The stories commonly told respecting the "piombi" of the Ducal Palace are utterly false. SECTION XVI. Now, observe the significant progress of events.
"Thou art the man whom we seek. Conduct him to the gondola of the Piombi." Fra Antonio fell upon his knees in wild supplication as the guards gathered around him, but the Father Superior detained them with a prohibitory motion. "I crave your Excellency's pardon.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking