The Prisons
Antonio da Ponte and Antonio Contin (Antonio da Ponte 1512 to 1597) · 1589 to 1614
After the gold and the painted skies of the state rooms, the prisons come as a shock. Low corridors of bare stone lead to rows of small cells with heavy wooden doors and iron bolts, lit only by narrow openings onto the corridor. Wooden platforms served as beds, and some walls still carry scratched names and drawings left by inmates. The Republic was proud of these buildings. The New Prisons, begun in the fifteen eighties and finished in the early seventeenth century, were among the first purpose built prisons in Europe, with separate cells, light and air, at a time when most cities simply threw people into a castle basement.
The older cells inside the palace itself were another matter. The Pozzi, the Wells, were on the ground floor at the level of the canal, damp and dark, and the Piombi, the Leads, were in the attic beneath the lead roof, freezing in winter and stifling in summer. The Piombi are visited only on the Secret Itineraries tour, but the ordinary route takes you through the New Prisons and the corridor to the Pozzi. Look at the thickness of the doors and the way the locks are set so that a guard could check a cell without opening it.
The most famous prisoner was Giacomo Casanova, locked in the Leads in 1755 for offences against religion and public morals, who escaped through the roof in 1756 and wrote a best selling account of it. Ordinary inmates were mostly debtors, thieves and smugglers, and the Republic's reputation for cruelty was largely a myth spread by its enemies. A memorable detail is a small courtyard in the middle of the New Prisons where inmates could take the air, an idea that would not be common elsewhere for another two centuries.
Did You Know? Casanova escaped from the Leads in 1756 by breaking through the roof with an iron bar and walking calmly out of the palace at dawn.
Unlock the Full Guide
Read every room and listen to every work in all museums with premium.