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The Bronze Lion of St. Mark at Venice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

J. B. Ward Perkins
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Extract

The measures taken for the protection of the monuments and works of art of Europe during the recent war, besides saving an incalculable number from damage or destruction, have also made available for detailed study many that are normally difficult or impossible of access. One such has been the bronze lion of St. Mark, familiar indeed to every visitor to Venice but only at a respectable distance, from the loggia of the Doge's Palace or from the foot of its lofty column by the waterfront of the Piazzetta di San Marco. In 1941, together with its companion figure of St. Theodore, the four bronze horses from the facade of St. Mark's, the great equestrian bronze of Colleoni, and numerous lesser works, it was lowered to safety and stored throughout the war in the vaults of the Doge's Palace. Shortly after the liberation of Venice in 1945 it re-emerged to form part of a unique temporary exhibition in the courtyard of the Palace, after which it was replaced once more upon its column. The writer is indebted to Commendatore Forlati, Superintendent of Monuments for the Veneto, for permitting publication and for much courteous help in eliciting facts and photographs ; and to many colleagues in Rome for criticism and comment—helpful not least by its variety. While venturing some comment on what is evidently a provocative and controversial animal, it must be stressed that the primary purpose of this article is the presentation of a detailed description of the statue, accompanied by the known historical facts and by adequate illustration. These will at least enable others, better qualified, to pass long-overdue judgment on one of the select company of ancient works of art that have never been below ground since the day they were made.

Type
Research Article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 21 , Issue 81 , March 1947 , pp. 23 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd 1947

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References

1 In addition to those mentioned in the text I wish to thank especially Signora Forlati and Miss J. M. C. Toynbee ; Mr T. J. Dunbabin, Mr R. H. Hinks, Prof. G. Mancini, Prof. C. R. Morey, Prof. M. Pallottino, Dr E. Sjöqvist, and Prof. P. Toesca.

2 Quoted by Boni, see note 3.

3 G. Boni, ‘Il Leone di San Marco,’ Archivio Storico dell’Arte V, 1892, pp. 301–20.

4 MCCXCIII. Die decima quarta Madij. Item quod Leo, qui est supra columpnam, debeat iptari de denarijs qui accipientur de gratia Vini et lignaminis. (Archivio di Stato Venezia, Deltberazioni del maggior Consiglio, Pilosis, quoted by Boni, op. cit. p. 307).

5 Probably from Chios ; see D. W. S. Hunt, Annual of the British School at Athens, XLI, 46–7.

6 Boni, op. cit. p. 304.

7 P. Ducati, Storia dell’arte etnisca, pp. 219, 262, and 266, n. 24 (with bibliography), and pl. 106; G. Q. Giglioli, L’arte etrusca, pls. 228–229 (with bibliography).

8 Ducati, op. cit. pp. 261–2 and pl. 105; Giglioli, op. cit. pl. 197 (with bibliography); Helbig, Führer, 3rd edition (1912), 1, pp. 562–4.

9 Venturi, Storia dell’Arte Italiana, III, p. 279 f. and fig. 291 ; better illustrated C. Ricci, L’architettura romanica in Italia, pl. 57. Is it coincidence that the lions carved by the Pisan sculptors of the thirteenth century echo the shoulder convention of the same beast?

10 Helbig, Führer, loe. cit.

11 See Venturi, Storia dell’Arte Italiana II, p. 540. The efforts of Boni (op. cit. pp. 310–5) to prove the contrary are not convincing.

12 R. Papini, Catalogo delle cose d’arte e di antichità d’Italia : Pisa, pp. 116–7, no. 220, where it is stated to be Egyptian work of the Fatimid period. Monneret de Villard however (Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, 1946, pp. 21–3) convincingly argues that it is Arabo-Spanish (Andalusian) work.

13 Archivio Storico dell’Arte 11, 1889, pp. 185–203, 327–338, 433–4.

14 Illustrated by R. A. Gallenga Stuart, Perugia (Italia Artistica, no. 15), p. 37.

15 A. Venturi, Storia dell’Arte Italiana II (1902), pp. 540–2.

16 Since this article was completed, Professor Osvald Siren has kindly replied to the writer’s enquiry : ‘ I must say that I cannot see any trace of Far Eastern influence in this rather extra ordinary sculpture. Neither the body nor the head reminds me in the slightest degree of anything that I know from the Far East ... it was certainly not made in the Far East’.

17 H. Stuart Jones, Catal. of the Sculptures of the Palazzo dei Conservatori, pp. 173–4, pl. 60.

18 By tradition it was, like the horses of St. Mark’s and perhaps also the lion, looted from Constantinople in 1204, and lost by shipwreck on the homeward voyage. The Emperor whom it represents is variously identified. See Peirce and Tyler, L’art Byzantin I, pls. 30–2.

19 See notably C. R. Morey, Early Christian Art, Princeton, 1942, chapter 11.

20 Herodotus, VII, 125–6 ; Xenophon, On Hunting, XI, 1.

21 Weigand, Berliner Museum, XLVIII 3 (1927), p. 61 f., fig. 1 ; G. M. A. Richter, Animals in Greek Sculpture (1930), fig. 10.

22 True, Olympia, in (1894), pl. XXXV, 1 ; Richter, op. cit. fig. 11.

23 A. H. Smith, Catal, of Sculpture in the Dept. of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum, II (1900), pp. 129 ff. no. 1075 ; Richter, op. cit. fig- 28.

24 M. Collignon, Les Statues funéraires (1911), pp. 233 ff., fig. 153 ; Richter, op. cit. fig. 28.

25 An invaluable recent summary of Hittite and related art, illustrating many lions, is that of H. T. Bossert, Alt.-Anatolien (Berlin 1942). The outstanding Assyrian lion-representations are in the British Museum, from the palaces of Ashur-nazir-pal (884–859) at Nimroud, and of Ashur-bani-pal (669–26) at Nineveh.

26 Payne, Necrocorinthia (1930), pp. 67–9 et passim.

27 Payne, op. cit. p. 69.

28 e.g. on the sphinx of Amenemhet in in the Cairo Museum.

29 Lion-vase from Sparta, second quarter of the seventh century (fig. 4, no. 2, after Payne, op. cit. fig. 72 ; cf. fig.ji, the earliest of the series). The Macmillan vase in the British Museum (fig. 4, no 4), and its brother in Berlin (Johansen, Les Vases Sicyoniens, pl. 20, 4), are closely related to the Chigi vase.

30 Payne, op. cit. figs. 76 and 81A.

31 Richter, op. cit. fig. 3.

32 Fouilles de Delphes, IV, I (1909), pls. XII-XIV; Richter, op. cit. fig. 8.

33 F. N. Pryce, Catal. of Sculpture in the Dept. of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum (192;), pl. XVII.

34 A. H. Smith, Catai, of Sculpture in the Dept. of Greek and Roman Antiquities, British Museum (1900), vol. II, pl. XXVI ; Richter, op. cit. fig. 27 ; cf. also the lions on the Payava and Merehi monuments at Xanthos, Smith, op. cit. pls. VI and XIII.

35 E. Galli. ‘Il leoncino di Sigillo’, Studi Etruschi, xvn (1943), pp. 115–49.

36 Richter, op, cit. figs 3, 4 and 8 respectively.

37 C. Densmore Curtis, The Barberini Tomb, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome, V, 1935, pls. 17 (ivory mounts) and 11,3 (ivory arm).

38 F. Poulsen, Der Orient und die friihgriechische Kunst, abb. 135–6 and 144.

39 K. Kluge, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Arch. Inst., 1929, 1–30 ; and Die Antike Grossbronzen. The charioteer at Delphi, he maintains, illustrates both technical processes.

40 S. Casson, Technique of Early Greek Sculpture, p. 154.

41 Pausanias VIII, 14, 8: ‘ The first to cast statues in molten bronze were the Samians Rhoikos, son of Phileas, and Theodoras, son of Telekles.’ Theodoras worked for Kroisos and for Poly- krates (c. 550–520).

42 An assumption rightly avoided, though not discussed, by G. M. A. Richter, The Sculpture and the Sculptors of the Greeks, 1930, p. 136.

43 Lehman-Haupt, Materialen zür älteren Geschichte Arméniens una Mesopotamiens, 1907, i. 98 and fig. 69 ; reproduced by H. T. Bossert, Alt.-Anatolien, Berlin, 1942, figs. 1163–4, pl. 305.

44 Bossert, op. cit. figs. 1163–94.

45 A. Gotze, Kleinasien, 1933, fig. 17, reproduced by Bossert, op. cit. fig. 1169, pl. 307 ; and inaccurately) by Herzfeld, Iran in the Ancient East, 1941, fig. 354. Cf. Bossert, op. cit. fig. 1170, rom Van.

46 Herzfeld, op. cit. pl. LXI.

47 See also Henri Seyrig, Syria XX, 1939, pp. 177–83.

48 Herzfeld, op. cit. pp. 248–9 and fig. 249 ; cf. Bossert, op. cit. fig. 1199, pl. 315.

49 F. Poulsen, Der Orient und die friihgriechische Kunst, passim.

50 R. M. Dawkins, The Sanctuary of Arihemis Orthia at Sparta, pls. 149–53, especially pl. 152, 2.

51 D. G. Hogarth, British Museum Excavations at Ephesus, pl. xxi, 3.

52 C. Densmore Curtis, ‘The Barberini Tomb’, Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome v, 1925, pl, 15, 1–3.