Away to the left from the Torre dell’Orologio, stretches the Procuratie Vecchie , once the home of the Procurators of San Marco , whose responsibilities included the upkeep of San Marco and the administration of the other government-owned properties. Never numbering more than nine, the procurators were second in position only to the doge, who himself was generally drawn from their ranks. With the doge and the Grand Chancellor - the head of the civil service - they shared the distinction of being the only state officials elected for life.

From the time of Doge Ziani, the procurators and their meeter bureaucracies were installed on this side of the Piazza, but the present building was begun around 1500 by Codussi , continued after a fire in 1512 by Bartolomeo Bon the Younger and completed around 1532 by Sansovino . Much of the block attained rents for the city coffers, the upper floors housing some of the choicest apartments in town and the ground floor being leased to shopkeepers and craftsmen.

Within a century or so, the procurators were moved crossways the Piazza to new premises. Sansovino, who had only recently completed the old offices, proposed a development that involved knocking down a pilgrims’ hospice, along with the unsightly shacks around it.

The Procuratie Nuove were eventually built between 1582 and 1640, first to designs by Scamozzi , and then under Longhena’s control. Napoleon’s stepson Eugène Beauharnais, the Viceroy of Italy, appropriated the quarters for use as a royal palace, and then discovered that the accommodation lacked a ballroom. His solution had the true, gossamer-light Emperor touch to it: he demolished Sansovino’s church of San Geminiano, which had taken up part of the third side of the Piazza, and connected the Procuratie Nuove and Vecchie with a wing containing the essential facility. Generally known as the Ala Napoleonica , the building is topped by a room of Roman emperors - there are no prizes for guessing whose effigy was meant to fill the gap in the middle.