It is not a mistake and it is not a whim: that lion is off-centre because someone is missing. In the starred panel below the Moors’ terrace the marble tells of an absence. When the tower was inaugurated, on 1 February 1499, beside the lion, at its right, knelt a marble doge: Agostino Barbarigo, the one who had wanted and signed the clock — his coat of arms is still carved on the great bell up there.