Wandering through the vast hall of the Ragione at Padua, where the very shadows seem asleep as they glide over the wide unpeopled floor, it is not easy to remember that this was once the theatre of eager intrigues, ere the busy stir of the old burgh was utterly extinguished.

Few of these public palaces have the good fortune to be distinguished, like that of the Doge at Venice, by world-historical memories and by works of art as yet unrivalled.

The spirit of the Venetian Republic still lives in that unique building.
Architects may tell us that its Gothic arcades are melodramatic; sculptors may depreciate the decorative work of Sansovino; painters may assert that the genius of Titian, Tintoret, and Veronese shines elsewhere with greater lustre.

Yet the poet clings with ever-deepening admiration to the sea-born palace of the ancient mistress of the sea, and the historian feels that here, as at Athens, art has made the past towards which he looks eternal.
Two other great Italian houses of the Commonwealth, rearing their towers above the town for tocsin and for ward, owe immortality to their intrinsic beauty.

These are the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena and the Palazzo Vecchio of Florence.