The Palace is the most representative symbol of Venice's culture, which, together with the Basilica of San Marco at the back and the Piazzetta in the forefront, forms of the most famous sceneries in the world.

The Doge's Palace (Palazzo Ducale di Venezia) is a gothic palace in Venice.

The palace was the residence of the Doge of Venice.

Its two most visible facdes look towards the Venetian Lagoon and St Mark's Square, or rather the Piazzetta.

The use of arcading in the lower stories produces an interesting "gravity-defying" effect. There is also effective use of color contrasts.

Grimani was a cultured man whose vast collection of classical statuary formed the nucleus of Venice's Museo Archeologico.

The obligatory guided tour leads you through a series of lofty rooms, some with delightful decorative plaster moldings, others with spectacular ceiling frescoes of bird-filled vegetation by landscape painter Camillo Mantovano; with hardly any furniture to impede your sight lines, this is the Venetian palazzo in all its untrammeled splendor.