Everyone looks at the Renaissance façade of the Carmini, but the treasure is to the side: the side portal is covered by a projecting 14th-century protiro, a rarity in Venice, and its faces are studded with patere — roundels of Greek marble carved with a whole medieval bestiary. They are Veneto-Byzantine pieces of the 11th-13th centuries, reused: in Venice more than a thousand are counted, walled onto houses and churches.