A Venetian style reproduction Renaissance chimneypiece carved in white marble. Inspired by the richly ornamented fireplaces of Italian Renaissance palaces, the Grimani pays homage to Venice and the wider region’s artistic heritage. The winged lion in the centre of the frieze – framed by a laurel wreath and holding a sword and a book – is the symbol of the Serenissima’s patron saint, the evangelist Mark, as found most famously on one of the columns flanking Piazza San Marco from the lagoon. The two figures with animal heads and foliate bodies on either side of the lion recall the fantastical creatures in fifteenth and sixteenth century grottesche, a type of decoration fashioned after the frescos found in excavations of Emperor Nero’s Domus Aurea in Rome around 1500, as well as Renaissance reliefs modelled on ancient Roman sarcophagi.