Lion of Venice

The Lion of Venice is an ancient bronze sculpture of a winged lion in the Piazzetta di San Marco, in the Italian city of Venice, which came to symbolize the city—as well as one of its patron saints, Saint Mark—after its arrival there in the 12th century. The sculpture surmounts one of the columns of San Marco and San Todaro, two large granite columns in the square, which are thought to have been erected between 1172 and 1177 during the reign of Doge Sebastiano Ziani or about 1268, bearing ancient symbols of the two patron saints of Venice. The figure, which stands on the eastern column, at some point came to represent the Lion of Saint Mark, the traditional symbol of Mark the Evangelist. The figure standing on the western column is Saint Theodore of Amasea, patron of the city before Saint 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. The Lion weighs approximately 3,000 kilograms. The book under its front paws is a later addition.

The sculpture has had a very long and obscure history; it is now thought, following scientific analysis of the metal in 2024, that it was probably made in China, during the Tang Dynasty (618–906), as a figure of the hybrid type of monster normally called a zhènmùshòu (镇墓兽 in Simplified Chinese, meaning 'tomb-guarding beast'). However, surviving examples in Tang dynasty tomb figures are all in pottery. It would probably originally have had horns as well as wings, and a more upright posture.

It was previously believed that its origin was in the Ancient Near East, as a winged lion-griffin statue, perhaps on a monument to the god Sandon at Tarsus in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia, perhaps cast around 300 BC.

Regarding the lion's arrival in Venice, there is speculation that the sculpture was part of the luggage of Niccolò and Maffeo Polo, father and uncle of the explorer Marco Polo. Around 1265, they visited the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan in Khanbaliq (present-day Beijing), where they were able to find the piece.