New research shows that the bronze statue of a winged lion that long adorned the heart of St. Mark’s Square in Venice comes from a distant land. It was made in China as the guardian of the tomb more than a thousand years ago and may have been imported to Italy by Marco Polo’s father via the Silk Road in the 13th century, researchers found.
“Venice is a mysterious city, but it has been resolved. The ‘lion’ in St. Mark was Chinese and he walked the Silk Road,” a study by Massimo Vider, an archaeologist at the University of Padua, said in a statement.
In this study, Vidale and colleagues, published on Thursday (September 4) in the Antiquity Journal, identified the source of bronze used to create the iconic lion.
Researchers looked at a series of nine samples from different parts of the lion and used mass spectrometry to determine the ratio of lead isotopes within the metal. Metallic alloys such as bronze, a mixture of copper and tin, contain small amounts of lead, researchers wrote in their studies, and variations in lead atoms can indicate the geological source of copper.
By comparing lead isotope ratios from Venice lions with a global reference database, researchers narrowed the origins of today’s Chinese bronze to the lower Chang (Yangtze) river. This region of eastern China is home to large sediments of several important ores, including iron, copper, zinc and gold. These deposits were used for other artifacts. For example, previous studies by another research group showed that artifacts from the Shang dynasty (1600-1050 BC) had the same lead isotopic signal as Venetian lions.
The revelation that bronze was born in China may help explain some of the strange stylistic choices of Venice Arion, researchers suggested. It does not look like any other medieval lion found in Europe from the 11th to 14th centuries.
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However, Venice Arion has some similarities with the art of the kingly dynasty in China (618-907 AD), particularly “Zhènmùshòu” or “guardian of the tomb.” These monumental statues often portrayed hybrid creatures with lion-like muzzles and manes, pointed ears, horns and raised wings. Veniceraion has several of these functions, with a metal “scarring” with one or two corners removed.
Researchers suggested that one possible explanation for the Venice lion was with Mafeo Polo, the father and uncle of Venetian merchants Nicolo and Marco Polo. In the 13th century, the brothers crossed the Silk Road, established trading posts, and eventually arrived in the city known today as Beijing, where they spent four years at the courthouse in Kubraikan. Poss possibly encountered a “grave guardian” statue that suited their notion of what a lion would look like, the researchers suggested.
In the 13th century, when the Venice Republic ruled the Eastern trade routes, its symbol was a winged lion placed on the water along with the Gospels of Saint Mark, the patron saint of Venice. This image, which also appeared on the Republic’s flag, symbolized Venice’s maritime rule.
“In the general effort to spread it [Venetian] Porus, the new and powerful symbol of the Republic, may have had the somewhat brave idea of reading the sculpture into a plausible (when viewed from afar) winged lion.
“Of course, this is just one possible scenario based on the intersection of historical and archaeological data,” the researchers write. “Now, this word goes back to historians.”
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