Because there's so much to take in on the vast facade of Ca' Persaro, it's surprisingly easy to overlook the grotesque strand of monumental animal heads running along its base, but here they are to begin the new year, and perhaps it's nice to fantasize that they might serve (as grotesques were once intended to do on facades) to keep evil spirits and malevolent forces at bay over the coming month--not just at Ca' Pesaro, but in Venice and the lagoon as a whole.
In any case, it's no simple to task to discern exactly which animal is supposed to be represented by each face--but that would be a topic for another post, and require a lot more images.
Years back, once I'd become aware that they were not all the same, I became fascinated by the variety of them. Some are quite nightmare-ish! Thank you again.
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