Doge's Palace of Venice

Rebuilt in Istrian stone and marble between 1424 and 1438 after several fires, Venice's Doge's Palace blends oriental Gothic and nascent Renaissance influences. Its openwork façade of pink and white loggias faces Piazzetta San Marco like a lace screen of stone. Inside, the doge's apartments, the prisons and the Bridge of Sighs compose a labyrinth where republican power and justice overlap. The building is at once fortress, government office and decorative manifesto of a Republic that sees itself as eternal.

The fifteenth-century construction finally stabilizes an edifice prone to flames since the ninth century. The first floor's arcades, the second's Gothic quatrefoils, the frieze of twelve apostles and the crowned Justice sculpture crown a composition where political ornament counts as much as structure. Rebuilt in Istrian stone and marble between 1424 and 1438 after several fires, Venice's Doge's Palace blends oriental Gothic and nascent Renaissance influences.

The interior rooms — Sala del Maggior Consiglio, Tintoretto's Paradiso — welcome thousands of patricians who come to elect the doge and vote on decisions of war or commerce. The secrecy of ballots, the golden staircases reserved for magistrates, the cells of the piombi and pozzi tell another face: repression, espionage, detention. Its openwork façade of pink and white loggias faces Piazzetta San Marco like a lace screen of stone.

The palazzo survives the Republic's fall in 1797, Napoleonic and Austrian occupations, acqua alta floods. Permanent restorations fight against lagoon humidity. It remains Venice's most recognizable face, where the Renaissance doesn't replace the Gothic but covers it with polished marble. Inside, the doge's apartments, the prisons and the Bridge of Sighs compose a labyrinth where republican power and justice overlap.