Editing Doge's Palace (section)

===Bridge of Sighs and the New Prisons===
[[File:4775 - Venezia - Palazzo ducale - Capitello 12 - Falsa fides in me semper est - Foto Giovanni Dall'Orto, 31-Jul-2008.jpg|thumb|left|Capital #12 in the porch (counting as #0 the one at the corner near the [[Bridge of Sighs]]): "Allegories of Virtues and Vices" – "Falsa fides in me semper est"]]

A corridor leads over the [[Bridge of Sighs]], built in 1614 to link the Doge's Palace to the structure intended to house the New Prisons.<ref>Geltner, G., 2008. ''The Medieval Prison: A Social History''. Princeton: Princeton University Press (pp. 13)</ref> Enclosed and covered on all sides, the bridge contains two separate corridors that run next to each other. That which visitors use today linked the Prisons to the chambers of the Magistrato alle Leggi and the Quarantia Criminal; the other linked the prisons to the State Advocacy rooms and the Parlatorio. Both corridors are linked to the service staircase that leads from the ground floor cells of the Pozzi to the roof cells of the Piombi.

The famous name of the bridge dates from the [[Romantic period]] and was supposed to refer to the sighs of prisoners who, passing from the courtroom to the cell in which they would serve their sentence, took a last look at freedom as they glimpsed the lagoon and [[Church of San Giorgio Maggiore|San Giorgio]] through the small windows. In the mid-16th century, it was decided to build a new structure on the other side of the canal to the side of the palace which would house prisons and the chambers of the magistrates known as the Notte al Criminal. Ultimately linked to the palace by the Bridge of Sighs, the building was intended to improve the conditions for prisoners with larger and more light-filled and airy cells. However, certain sections of the new prisons fall short of this aim, particularly those laid out with passageways on all sides and those cells which give onto the inner courtyard of the building. In keeping with previous traditions, each cell was lined with overlapping planks of larch that were nailed in place.

[[File:Madonna col bambino, Palazzo Ducale, Venezia.jpg|thumb|right|''Madonna col bambino'', the painting stolen on 9 October 1991 by [[Vincenzo Pipino]] after he hid in a cell in the New Prisons]]

The only<!-- modern? --> art theft from the Doge's Palace was executed on 9 October 1991 by [[Vincenzo Pipino]], who hid in one of the cells in the New Prisons after lagging behind a tour group, then crossed the Bridge of Sighs in the middle of the night to the Sala di Censori. In that room was the ''Madonna col bambino'', a work symbolic of "the power of the Venetian state" painted in the early 1500s by a member of the [[Vivarini]] school.{{sfn|Davis|Wolman|2014}} By the next morning, it was in the possession of the [[Mala del Brenta]] organized crime group. The painting was recovered by the police on 7 November 1991.<ref>{{cite journal|journal=Epic Magazine|url=https://medium.com/epic-magazine/pipino-gentleman-thief-ede9713dafb1|title=Pipino: Gentleman Thief|last1=Davis|first1=Joshua|last2=Wolman|first2=David|editor-last=Bearman|editor-first=Joshuah|date=26 October 2014|access-date=20 January 2015}}</ref>