This is the first room on this floor dedicated to the administration of justice; its name comes from the large wooden compass surmounted by a statue of Justice, which stands in one corner and hides the entrance to the rooms of the three Heads of the Council of Ten and the State Inquisitors. This room, therefore, was the antechamber where those who had been summoned by these powerful magistrates waited to be called and the magnificent decor was intended to underline the solemnity of the Republic’s legal machinery, some of the most famous and efficient components of which were housed in these rooms. The decor dates from the 16th century, and once again it was Veronese who was commissioned to decorate the ceiling. Completed in 1554, the works he produced are all intended to exalt the “good government” of the Venetian Republic; the central panel, with St. Mark descending to crown the three Theological Virtues, is a copy of the original, now in the Louvre. Sansovino designed the large fireplace in 1553-54. Within the palace, all rooms that served in the exercise of justice were linked vertically. From the ground-floor prisons known as The Wells, to the Advocate’s Offices on the loggia floor, the Councils of Forty and the Hall of the Magistrates of Law on the first floor and the various courtrooms on this second floor, the progression culminated in the prisons directly under the roof, the famous Piombi or “Leads”. Stairways, corridors and vestibules interconnected all of these spaces. From this room, in fact, one can pass to the Armory and the New Prisons, on the other side of the Bridge of Sighs, or go straight down the Censors’ Staircase to pass into the rooms housing the councils of justice on the first floor.
