Palazzo Ducale

The name of this hall comes from the fact that the coat-of-arms (scudo) of the reigning Doge was exhibited here while he granted audiences and received guests. The coat-of-arms currently on display is that of Ludovico Manin, the Doge reigning when the Republic of St. Mark came to an end in 1797.This is the largest room in the Doge's apartments, and runs the entire width of this wing of the Palace, from the canal to the courtyard. The original versions of these maps were produced after the 1483 fire by the geographer and humanist Giovan Battista Ramusio (who drew up the map showing Italy and the Mediterranean), the Greek Giovanni Domenico Zorzi (Asia Minor) and the Piedmontese cartographer Giacomo Gastaldi (Turkey, Egypt and the Asia of Marco Polo). Adorning the two main walls of the hall, these four geographical maps were reworked in 1762 by Francesco Grisellini, commissioned by Marco Foscarini, to add other paintings that described the voyages of the most famous Venetian explorers: Nicolò and Antonio Zen, who traveled as far as Greenland; Pietro Querini, who was shipwrecked in the fjords of Norway; and Alvise da Mosto, who discovered the Cape Verde Islands. The two revolving globes in the centre of the hall date from the same period: one shows the sphere of heavens, the other the surface of Earth.