Editing Doge's Palace (section)

===Museo dell'Opera===
Over the centuries, the Doge's Palace has been restructured and restored countless times. Due to fires, structural failures, and infiltrations, and new organizational requirements and modifications or complete overhaulings of the ornamental trappings there was hardly a moment in which some kind of works have not been underway at the building. From the [[Middle Ages]], the activities of maintenance and conservation were in the hands of a "technical office", which was in charge of all such operations and oversaw the workers and their sites: the ''Opera'', or ''fabbriceria'' or ''procuratoria''. After the mid-19th century, the palace seemed to be in such a state of decay that its very survival was in question; thus, in 1876 a major restoration plan was launched. The work involved the two façades and the capitals belonging to the ground-floor arcade and the upper loggia: 42 of these, which appeared to be in an especially dilapidated state, were removed and replaced by copies. The originals, some of which were masterpieces of Venetian sculpture of the 14th and 15th centuries, were placed, together with other sculptures from the façades, in an area specifically set aside for this purpose: the Museo dell'Opera. After undergoing thorough and careful restoration works, they are now exhibited, on their original columns, in these six rooms of the museum, which are traversed by an ancient wall in great blocks of stone, a remnant of an earlier version of the palace. The rooms also contain fragments of statues and important architectural and decorative works in stone from the façades of the palace.