The Great Council Chamber
Sala del maggior consiglio
“1340. On the 28th of December, in the preceding year, Master Marco Erizzo, Nicolo Soranzo, and Thomas Gradenigo, were chosen to examine where a new saloon might be built in order to assemble therein the Greater Council. .”
Canaletto, The Great Council Chamber ca. 1750
“The room then begun [in 1340] is the one now in existence, and its building involved the building of all that is best and most beautiful in the present Ducal Palace, the rich arcades of the lower stories being all prepared for sustaining this Sala del Gran Consiglio.”
Doge’s palace, façade facing the basin. “Rich arcades” supporting the Great Council Chamber which extends from the central balcony to the left corner of the building.
The rebuilding begun in 1340 was interrupted by the Black Plague (1348) and the conspiracy of Doge Marino Faliero in 1355 for which he was beheaded. The work on the palace resumed in 1362.
The Great Council Chamber at a much later date, although the key features remain, the long rows of benches back-to-back where the nobles of the Great Council sat, the dais with ducal throne against the far wall, and the glass windows overlooking the lagoon.
In order to understand what the Great Council Chamber might have looked like when Doge Andrea Contarini was elected and Nico counted the votes, one must strip away the Renaissance and Baroque fittings and paintings, all of which were added after the devastating fire of 1577 destroyed everything that was there. We do know that the “Paradise” of Guariento occupied the entire wall above the Doge’s throne on the far wall (just as Tintoretto’s does now) but it was badly burned in the fire and no one is entirely certain what it looked like.
Tintoretto’s “Paradiso” above the dais today.
The Doge sat in the central throne, flanked by his six counselors.
All that remains of Guariento’s “Paradiso” after the fire.
Jacobello del Fiore’s “Coronation of the Virgin,” ca. 1438, is said to have been a copy of Guariento’s “Paradiso” in the Great Council Chamber.
Artists’ renderings of the 1577 fire which destroyed Guariento’s “Paradiso” and much of the Doge’s Palace.
