,
p. 426.]--and, the following year, on the 27th of March, the first
hammer was lifted up against the old palace of Ziani. [Footnote: Compare
Appendix I. Vol. III.]
SECTION XXV. That hammer stroke was the first act of the period properly
called the "Renaissance" It was the knell of the architecture of
Venice,--and of Venice herself.
The central epoch of her life was past; the decay had already begun: I
dated its commencement above (Ch. I., Vol. I.) from the death of
Mocenigo. A year had not yet elapsed since that great Doge had been
called to his account: his patriotism, always sincere, had been in this
instance mistaken; in his zeal for the honor of future Venice, he had
forgotten what was due to the Venice of long ago. A thousand palaces
might be built upon her burdened islands, but none of them could take
the place, or recall the memory, of that which was first built upon her
unfrequented shore. It fell; and, as if it had been the talisman of her
fortunes, the city never flourished again.
SECTION XXVI. I have no intention of following out, in their intricate
details, the operations which were begun under Foscari and continued
under succeeding Doges till the palace assumed its present form, for I
am not in this work concerned, except by occasional reference, with the
architecture of the fifteenth century: but the main facts are the
following.
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