however extensive, and interfered in many directions with the earlier
work of the palace: still the only serious alteration in its form was
the transposition of the prisons, formerly at the top of the palace to
the other side of the Rio del Palazzo; and the building of the Bridge of
Sighs, to connect them with the palace, by Antonio da Ponte. The
completion of this work brought the whole edifice into its present form;
with the exception of alterations indoors, partitions, and staircases
among the inner apartments, not worth noticing, and such barbarisms and
defacements as have been suffered within the last fifty years, by, I
suppose nearly every building of importance in Italy.