Palazzo Ducale, one of the symbols of the city of Venice and a masterpiece of Venetian Gothic, is a building that stands in the monumental area of Piazza San Marco, between the small square of the same name and the pier, adjacent to the Basilica of San Marco.
Characterized by a style that, drawing inspiration mainly from Byzantine and Eastern architecture, well exemplifies the intensity of the commercial and cultural relations between the Serenissima and the other European states, its beauty is based on a clever aesthetic and physical paradox, connected to the fact that the heavy mass of the main body is supported by apparently slender inlaid colonnades. The interiors, today partly deprived of the works that once decorated them, still preserve a large art gallery, which includes works by the most famous Venetian masters: Tintoretto, Tiziano Vecellio, Francesco Bassano, Paolo Veronese, Jacopo Palma the Younger.
Ancient seat of the Doge and the Venetian magistrates, founded after 812, hit by fires several times and consequently rebuilt, it followed the history of the Serenissima, from the dawn until its fall: Venice annexed to the Kingdom of Italy and the building passed under the jurisdiction of the latter, it became a museum. Today it houses the Civic Museum of Palazzo Ducale, part of the Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia (MUVE).