There is a doorway on the southern wall of a large church in Venice, the basilica known as the Frari. The complex geometry of the Baroque-style doorway commemorates Giovanni Pesaro, 103th Doge of Venice (1658– 1659). Much disliked, Pesaro died suddenly in his first year as Doge. In 2024, the main resonance of the word ‘Doge’ is probably Dogecoin, a cryptocurrency first started with satirical intent but persistently traded on exchanges alongside the Bitcoin, Ethereum, Luckycoin and Litecoin in almost ten years of speculation.

The heavily ornate doorway (see Figure II.1) has the Doge seated on one of several platforms under a gold-tasselled canopy, flanked by a variety of martial, judicial, scholarly and artistic figures, as well as some quasi-mythical animals and angels. Above the Doge, close to the ceiling of the building, two small angels hover, holding an unfurled scroll, presumably inscribed with either the laws of Venice or the Doge's achievements. Pesaro and various attendants occupy niches separated by black marble columns. Two mythical creatures sit at his feet. The niches and columns stand on a thick plinth borne, along with heavy sacks of grain, on the shoulders of four black-marble figures clothed in torn fabric, slaves brought from Venice's colonies, themselves standing on four pedestals. A door to the piazza outside stands in the centre. At the base, and almost at the floor level where visitors and tourists go in and out in droves, skeletal corpse-like naked figures hold gold-lettered eulogies.