The bucentaur ( ; bucintoro in Italian and Venetian) was the ceremonial barge of the doges of Venice. It was used every year on Ascension Day (Festa della Sensa) 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 long and more than 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. Origin of the name 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 (1521–1586) 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 (, 'ox') and (, 'centaur'). 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