Bucintoro (c1300). The bucentaur was the state barge of the doges of Venice. It was used every year on Ascension Day up to 1798 to take the doge out to the Adriatic Sea to perform the Marriage of the Sea-a ceremony that symbolically wedded Venice to the sea. Scholars believe there were four major barges, the first significant bucentaur having been built in 1311. The last and most magnificent of the historic bucentaurs made its maiden voyage in 1729 in the reign of Doge Alvise III Sebastiano Mocenigo. Depicted in paintings by Canaletto and Francesco Guardi, the ship was 35 m long and more than 8 metres high. A two-deck floating palace, its main salon had a seating capacity of 90. The doge's throne was in the stern, and the prow bore a figurehead representing Justice with sword and scales. The barge was propelled by 168 oarsmen, and another 40 sailors were required to man it. The ship was destroyed in 1798 on Napoleon's orders to symbolize his victory in conquering Venice. In February 2008, the Fondazione Bucintoro announced a € 20 million project to rebuild the 1729 bucentaur. Work started on 15 March, 2008 at the Arsenale shipyard and naval dock. The origin of the name bucintoro is obscure, but one possibility is that it is derived from the Venetian, a traditional term for a lagoon vessel, and, meaning covered in gold. On the other hand, man of letters Francesco Sansovino proposed, based on documents dating from 1293, that it was named after an earlier boat built at the Arsenale shipyard called the. It has also been suggested that the vessel was named after the ship referred to by Virgil when describing the funeral rites observed by Aeneas to honour his father's death; the bucentaur was twice the size of the ship mentioned in the Aeneid. The name may also refer to the trumpets and horns that were played on board. The term was Latinized in the Middle Ages as on the analogy of an alleged Greek word meaning ox-centaur, from and. The common supposition was that the name derived from a creature of a man with the head of an ox, a figure of which served as the barge's figurehead. This derivation is, however, fanciful; the word is unknown in Greek mythology, and representations of the figurehead of the bucentaurs in fact depict the Lion of Saint Mark. The name bucentaur seems, indeed, to have been given to any great and sumptuous Venetian vessels. Du Cange quotes from the chronicle of the Doge Andrea Dandolo:. The term was also used to describe a 16th-century sumptuous transport boat, built and decorated in Modena, to celebrate the marriage of Lucrezia, the daughter of Ercole II d'Este, Duke of Ferrara, to the Duke of Urbino. Before the age of the bucentaurs, it is probable that for ceremonies in the Venetian Lagoon the doge was simply assigned a small galley from the Venetian fleet. As Venice's wealth increased due to its naval power, plans were made for a special ship to be built. This is evidenced by the promissioni-sacramental pledges spoken by the doges when they were sworn into office-of Reniero Zeno of 1252, Lorenzo Tiepolo of 1268 and Giovanni Soranzo of 1312 which mention the construction of a bucentaur in the Arsenale shipyard and naval depot. Historians agree that four major barges were built. While there are believed to have been earlier vessels, the bucentaur of 1311 is regarded as the first significant one, for on 17 August 1311 the promissione was amended to add the statement quod Bucentaurus Domini ducis fiat per Dominium et teneatur in Arsenatu. This was the first time that Venetian law had provided that the expense of building the bucentaur was to be borne by the public budget. The two-decked bucentaur had a tiemo with two sections, one in purple velvet for the doge, the other in red velvet for Venetian nobles. The historian Marino Sanuto the Younger, in his work De origine, situ et magistratibus urbis Venetae, also described the ship as bearing a sculpture of Justice. The bucentaur was used not only for the Marriage of the Sea ceremony, but also for other state functions such as festivals celebrating the Virgin Mary and the bearing of newly crowned dogaressas to the Doge's Palace. On 6 May 1401, a law was passed to prohibit the doge from making private use of the bucentaur. Documents mention the construction of another bucentaur in 1449 larger than the 1311 one, but little is known about this vessel. The earliest known image of a bucentaur appeared in Jacopo de' Barbari's monumental woodcut Pianta di Venezia which was published in 1500. This work pictured a bucentaur afloat in the Arsenale without oars or decoration save for a large wooden sculpture of Justice in the bow.