Venise

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Italian History Nineteenth Century Albumen Views of Venice's Bridge of Sighs and Doge's Palace

1885rif. 139331885. Nineteenth-century albumen views of Venice's Ponte dei Sospiri and Palazzo Ducale document two closely connected structures in the judicial and political history of the Venetian Republic. The Bridge of Sighs completed in 1614 linked the Doge's Palace with the New Prisons across the Rio di Palazzo and carried prisoners between courtrooms magistrates' chambers and cells; the verso preserves a separate view of the Palazzo Ducale the former seat of the Republic's government and judiciary. Original large albumen photograph 10½ x 14 inches mounted on heavy cardboard to an overall size of 14 x 20 inches. The recto shows the Rio di Palazzo with gondolas moored along the canal and the enclosed Ponte dei Sospiri spanning the water its reflection visible below. Catalogued within the lower left corner of the image: "9. Venezia/ Ponte dei Sospiri." The bridge contains two enclosed passageways connecting the New Prisons with judicial rooms in the Doge's Palace. Its familiar name dates from the Romantic period and derives from the imagined sighs of prisoners glimpsing Venice through its small stone windows while crossing from judgment to confinement. On the verso is a second albumen photograph of the same size captioned within the image "38. Venezia/Palazzo Ducale." The two-sided mount preserves nineteenth-century photographic views of buildings central to Venice's former machinery of government and criminal justice. The Doge's Palace housed the Republic's governing bodies courts and earlier prisons while the purpose-built New Prisons were erected across the canal and connected to the palace by the Ponte dei Sospiri. Moderate staining and warping to the cardboard mount; the photographs themselves are in fine condition. The presence of a full-size Palazzo Ducale view on the verso gives the mount two related architectural records rather than a single Venetian tourist view. unknown