The festival's theme this year is "under the sea, " and the organizers planned nautical touches to the palace, such as an octopus ice sculpture and a throne shaped like a scallop shell.

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The Nine embarked upon a programme of urban renewal, adorning their new cathedral, building the city's civic palace, the vast piazza that spreads like a scallop shell before it, and the palatial hospital that still functioned in recent times.

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The sea scallop is a bivalve mollusk that lives inside a light pink, fan-shaped shell.

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We also learn to eat the connective tissue between shell and mollusc, la membrane, an extra little treat like a mini scallop.

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