If you are visiting the St Mark’s Basilica and you have just left the wonderful vision of the Pala d’Oro (not to be missed), just a few steps away from it, towards the exit, take a look at the floor where you are walking… At a certain point your will notice a stone slab different from the others, with a strange symbol: a heart that encloses a hedgehog surmounted by a Doge horn.

This representation recalls that beneath this slab it is buried the heart of the 98th Doge of the Serenissima Francesco Erizzo (1566-1646 – Doge from 1631 to 1646). The hedgehog under the Doge horn is the symbol of the patrician family Erizzo and comes from the assonance between the word “riccio” (hedgehog) and “Erizzo”. The remains of the Doge are located near his place of birth, inside the church of San Martino Vescovo of Castello, in a monument sculpted when he was still alive by Mattia Carnero.