Discover Palazzo dei Dieci Savi

The palace has two facades of very different character. The long side, facing the Ruga degli Orefici, is fronted by a portico of 37 arches, its cross-vaulted ceiling covered in frescoes that survive in largely good condition. Above, two upper floors -- separated by heavy cornices -- carry 37 mullioned windows in plain, undecorated stone frames, capped by a mullioned attic level at the very top.

The shorter Grand Canal facade echoes the same vocabulary at a smaller scale: four ground-floor arcades below five pairs of rectangular mullioned windows. The building's only real decorative flourishes are a 16th-century statue of Justice at a second-floor corner and the 1848 Lion of St. Mark relief marking its brief moment of revolutionary history.