Lion of Venice

This article is about the ancient bronze statue. For the traditional icon of St Mark, see Lion of Saint Mark.
The Lion of Venice
The Lion of Venice
ArtistUnknown
Yearc. 600-900 a.d. (disputed)
TypeBronze
LocationPiazza San Marco
Venice, Italy
The Lion in the 1870s.
The Lion seen from ground level in 2017.
The Lion seen from the Doge's Palace.

The Lion of Venice is an ancient bronze sculpture of a winged lion in the Piazza San Marco of Venice, Italy, which came to symbolize the city—as well as one of its patron saints, St Mark—after its arrival there in the 12th century. The sculpture surmounts one of two large granite columns in the Square, thought to have been erected between 1172 and 1177 during the reign of Doge Sebastiano Ziani[1] or about 1268,[2] bearing ancient symbols of the two patron saints of Venice.

The Lion sculpture has had a very long and obscure history, probably starting its existence as a funerary statue called zhènmùshòu (镇墓兽 in Simplified Chinese, literally “tomb guardian”) in medieval China, during the reign of the Tang Dynasty.[3] Earlier studies argued that it might instead come from a winged lion-griffin statue on a monument to the god Sandon at Tarsus in Cilicia, perhaps cast around 300 BC.[4] The figure, which stands on the eastern column, at some point came to represent the Lion of Saint Mark, traditional symbol of Saint Mark the evangelist. The figure standing on the western column is St. Theodore of Amasea, patron of the city before St Mark, who holds a spear and stands on a crocodile (to represent the dragon which he was said to have slain). It is also made up of parts of antique statues and is a copy, the original being kept in the Doge's Palace.

  1. ^ Madden, Thomas F., Venice: islands of honor and profit: a new history (2012), Penguin Books, p. 98.
  2. ^ Maguire, Henry and Robert S. Nelson, editors (2010), San Marco, Byzantium and the Myths of Venice (Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine Symposia and Colloquia); Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, pg 79 and note 10 on pg 10.
  3. ^ Leman, Altuntaş (16 September 2024). "The Lion of Venice was Made in China: Isotopic Analyses and Stylistic Comparisons Prove it". Retrieved 18 September 2024.
  4. ^ Scarfi, Bianca Maria, ”The Bronze Lion of St Mark” (1990); In: Scarfi, Bianca Maria, editor, The Lion of Venice: Studies and Research on the Bronze Statue in the Piazzetta, Prestel Publishing, pp. 31-124.