"They are the records of centuries of the most watchful, observant and suspicious government that ever existed--in which every thing was written down and nothing spoken out." They fill nearly three hundred rooms.

Among them are manuscripts from the archives of nearly two thousand families, monasteries and convents.

The secret history of Venice for a thousand years is here--its plots, its hidden trials, its assassinations, its commissions of hireling spies and masked bravoes--food, ready to hand, for a world of dark and mysterious romances.
Yes, I think we have seen all of Venice.

We have seen, in these old churches, a profusion of costly and elaborate sepulchre ornamentation such as we never dreampt of before.

We have stood in the dim religious light of these hoary sanctuaries, in the midst of long ranks of dusty monuments and effigies of the great dead of Venice, until we seemed drifting back, back, back, into the solemn past, and looking upon the scenes and mingling with the peoples of a remote antiquity.