“Francesco Foscari is a liar and he says things based on no grounds whatsoever.” These words were addressed contemptuously to Francesco Foscari by his predecessor Doge Tommaso Mocenigo in the 1420’s. Foscari would later have a controversial reign, but also the longest of any doge in Venice’s history, 34 years in power.

The distrust showed by Mocenigo was probably justified in hindsight. But let us back track a moment; as mentioned previously, the Doge’s Palace was for a long

 

time made of two separate buildings, one the seat of Government, the other of Justice, and the latter, by 1422, when Mocenigo was in power, was in very bad shape. There had been talks of tearing it down, to rebuild and unify the two palaces into one, creating more space for this wonderful courtyard; However, such enormous amounts of money had already been spent on renovating and decorating the Palace, that anyone who dared even propose an addition or modification would be fined heavily; in many ways it was a different manner for financing new projects. Tommaso Mocenigo felt strongly about the whole thing, so he bit the bullet, paid the fine and the unification of the Palace was underway. Unfortunately, he died before it was completed and Francesco Foscari, now doge, finished what Mocenigo had began, essentially taking credit for it. Foscari didn’t stop there either; being immensely rich he could and liked to think even bigger, so he built the sumptuous Arco Foscari to the side of the large staircase in the courtyard, naming it after himself of course.

The Palazzo Ducale is, however, still largely gothic in style and the older structure is lives on in the brick walls that surround two sides of the courtyard; it is an austere reddish simplicity that is in harmonious contrast to the white columns, arches and decorations framing the many windows on the newer sides built during the 15th century, mostly during Foscari’s time in fact.

And it is these Renaissance sumptuous additions which show just how rich and lavish the Venetian liked to be. As a Venetian historian noted just over a century ago,   “the   bronze   well-­‐heads   in   the   courtyard   are   a   fitting   tribute   to   our forefathers, who spared no expense to ensure that this, the seat of the Republic, was worthy of the name and the power it enjoyed in that century from one end of the Earth to the other.”