The Lion of Venice was made in China – History Blog

A winged lion perched on a column in Venice’s Piazza San Marco, the city’s symbol, was made in China. Much of it came from eighth-century China, where it made its way to Venice, where it was mixed with other parts and reshaped to fit the canonical image of the winged lion, a symbol of both the evangelist Marcus and Venice itself, a new study of bronze metallurgy finds.

Based on studies following restoration in the 1980s, the statue was thought to have been made in Anatolia during the early Hellenistic period (4th century BC), but studies of lead isotopes in the metal alloys found that they came from mines in the lower Yangtze River basin in southeastern China. With solid scientific evidence, researchers re-examined the lion’s design and found that the head, mane and chest have characteristics of Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) sculpture.

This style of creature had a specific function in Tang dynasty sculpture as tomb guardians. Known as tomb guardian beasts, they were ferocious fantasy beasts placed at the door of a tomb to scare away evil spirits and protect the soul of the deceased. By the 7th century, they were often placed in pairs, one with a human-like face and the other with the face of a lion or beast.

The lion and the statue of the Virgin of St. Mark share some common features, including wide nostrils, upward-pointing whiskers on either side, a wide open mouth, a pair of wide canines in the upper jaw, a pair of narrower canines in the lower jaw, flat teeth between the two teeth, and prominent eye sockets with horns set into them. The lion’s eye sockets are truncated, indicating that it also once had horns, but they were truncated to make it look more lion-like. Its ears also appear to have been cropped and are rounded, as the original statue of the Virgin had taller and more pointed ears.

The lion probably traveled westwards via India and Afghanistan along the Silk Road, which was a popular trade route during the Tang Dynasty. After that, the Silk Road was closed for centuries until it was reopened in the 13th century with Marco Polo’s voyages. There is no historical record of when the lion came to Venice, or when and how it became what it is today. Marco Polo wrote about the lion after his return from China in 1295, but by then it was not only already on top of a column, but it also needed restoration, so it had been exposed there for decades.

Furthermore, it was so massive—more than 13 feet long and weighing three tons—that there are no records of its transportation and erection, suggesting that it arrived in more manageable pieces. Analysis of samples of the sculpture’s various parts has revealed that it was recast and pieced together in parts in at least five or six stages, before Napoleon looted it and before French builders broke it into 20 pieces when they were forced to return it after Napoleon’s defeat.