Art's opportunity is the dull days and rainy.
With the best will to do so, I cannot be much impressed by the glory and power of the Doges.

They wear a look, to me, very little removed from Town Councillors: carried out to the highest power, no doubt, but incorrigibly municipal none the less; and the journey through these halls of their deliberations is tedious and unenchanting.

That I am wrong I am only too well aware.

Does not Venetian history, with its triumphs and pageantry of world-power, prove it?
And would Titian and Paul Veronese and Tintoretto have done all this for a Mayor and Corporation?
These are awkward questions.

None the less, there it is, and the Doges' Palace, within, would impart no thrill to me were it not for Tintoretto's "Bacchus and Ariadne." Having paid for our tickets (for only on Sundays and holidays is the Palace free) we take the Scala d'Oro, designed by Sansovino, originally intended only for the feet of the grandees of the Golden Book.