The corner wall between Rio Terà Foscarini and Callesela Rota: the worn pale slab on the bricks, above the shop window, is the coat of arms with the ball Photo: Lothar John, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0
On this brick wall, a couple of metres above the ground, is walled one of the most unusual plaques in Venice: a heraldic coat of arms carved in stone, and in the crest — the part that crowns the shield — a dark ball, smooth, perfectly round. It is not the stonecutter’s idea: it is a real cannonball, one of the thousands that rained down on the city.
