Conquest of Tyre
by VASSILACCHI, Antonio, Oil on canvas
The Sala dello Scrutinio (Voting Hall) is the second largest hall of the Doge’s Palace. The balloting and secret votes of the magistracies and the doge took place in this hall with the very complicated systems that the Venetian Republic had created to avoid intrigues and subterfuge during the elections and, above all, to ensure that the vote could not be bought especially from the poor nobility in favour of its richer equivalent.
The iconographic theme of the hall of the Sala dello Scrutinio was inspired by the Venetian naval victories on the Eastern seas shown in the numerous ceiling canvases depicting virtues and symbolic figures. Vassilacchi’s Conquest of Tyre on the wall of the Sala del Scrutinio depicts a historical event which occurred in 1123 under the rule of Doge Domenico Michiel, who commanded the Venetian fleet in the East.