So light and fresh is the effect, chiefly the result of the double row of arches and especially of the upper row, but not a little due to the zig-zagging of the brickwork and the vivid cheerfulness of the coping fringe, that one has difficulty in believing that the palace is of any age at all or that it will really be there to-morrow.

The other buildings in the neighbourhood--the Prison, the Mint, the Library, the Campanile: these are rooted.

But the Doges' Palace might float away at any moment.

Aladdin's lamp set it there: another rub and why should it not vanish?
The palace as we see it now has been in existence from the middle of the sixteenth century.

Certain internal changes and rebuildings have occurred, but its facades on the Piazzetta and lagoon, the Giants' Stairs, the courtyard, were then as now.