I said at the beginning of this precis of a gigantic campaign that it was not of great profit to Venice; nor was it.  All her life she had better have listened to the Little Venice party, but particularly then, for only misfortune resulted.  Dandolo, however, remains a terrific figure.  He died in Constantinople in 1205 and was buried in S. Sofia.  Doge Andrea Dandolo, whose tomb we saw in the Baptistery, was a descendant who came to the throne some hundred and forty years later.

Mention of Andrea Dandolo brings us to the portraits of Doges around the walls of this great hall, where the other Dandolo will also be found; for in the place adjoining Andrea’s head is a black square.  Once the portrait of the Doge who succeeded Andrea was here too, but it was blacked out.  Marino Faliero, for he it was, became Doge in 1354 when his age was seventy-six, having been both a soldier and a diplomatist.  He found himself at once involved in the war with Genoa, and almost immediately came the battle of Sapienza, when the Genoese took five thousand prisoners, including the admiral, Niccolo Pisani.  This blow was a very serious one for the Venetians, involving as it did great loss of life, and there was a growing feeling that they were badly governed.  The Doge, who was but a figure-head of the Council of Ten, secretly thinking so too, plotted for the overthrow of the Council and the establishment of himself in supreme power.  The Arsenal men were to form his chief army in the revolt; the false alarm of a Genoese attack was to get the populace together; and then the blow was to be struck and Faliero proclaimed prince.  But the plot miscarried through one of the conspirators warning a friend to keep indoors; the ringleaders were caught and hanged or exiled; and the Doge, after confessing his guilt, was beheaded in the courtyard of this palace.  His coffin may be seen in the Museo Civico, and of his unhappy story Byron made a drama.

One of Faliero’s party was Calendario, an architect, employed on the part of the Doges’ Palace in which we are now standing.  He was hanged or strangled between the two red columns in the upper arches of the Piazzetta facade.

The first Doge to be represented here is Antenorio Obelerio (804-810), but he had had predecessors, the first in fact dating from 697.  Of Obelerio little good is known.  He married a foreigner whom some believe to have been an illegitimate daughter of Charlemagne, and her influence was bad.  His brother Beato shared his throne, and in the end probably chased him from it.  Beato was Doge when Rialto became the seat of government, Malamocco having gone over to the Franks under Pepin.  But of Beato no account is here taken, Obelerio’s successor being Angelo Partecipazio (810-827), who was also the first occupant of the first Ducal Palace, on the site of a portion of the present one.  It was his son Giustiniano, sharing the throne with his father, who hit upon the brilliant idea of stealing the body of S. Mark from