The Final Moments of Doge Marin Faliero on the “del Piombo” Staircase

Francesco Hayez

Download hi-res image TITLE The Final Moments of Doge Marin Faliero on the “del Piombo” Staircase
AUTHOR Francesco Hayez
DATE 1867
OBJECT TYPE AND MATERIAL Oil on canvas
DIMENSIONS cm 238 x 192
INVENTORY 806
ROOM XXXVIII
FIRMA Francesco Hayez da Venezia / dipinse dell'età d'anni 77 / in Milano 1867
Work on display

This is the last historical picture painted by Hayez who, resigned to abandoning this kind of politically engaged work, lent his own features to the figure of Marin Faliero, a doge sentenced to execution for plotting against the patricians to set up a dynastic overlord-ship in Venice. The picture attracted praise at international exhibitions in Munich and Vienna and the public understood its symbolic message alluding to many Italian intellectuals’ disenchantment o9nce the country’s unity had been achieved.