The Last Moments of Doge Marin Faliero

Venice was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy in October 1866, after decades of Austrian rule. The following year Hayez finished the last of his history paintings, and the subject he chose was the execution of Marin Faliero, doge of Venice, beheaded in 1355 on a staircase of the Doge's Palace for plotting to break the power of the patrician families and rule alone. The doge's face in the picture is Hayez's own. The canvas travelled to exhibitions in Munich and Vienna, and at home it was read as an image of the disenchantment many Italian intellectuals felt once unification had actually arrived. He signed it across the canvas, Francesco Hayez of Venice, painted at the age of 77, in Milan, 1867.