Venice’s famous bronze statue of a winged lion, which stands atop a pedestal in St. Mark’s Square, took an intercontinental trip to Italy.
This symbol of medieval Venetian statehood started out as a tomb guardian sculpture in China’s Tang Dynasty, say archaeologist Massimo Vidale of the University of Padua in Italy and colleagues. Tang rulers held power from A.D. 618 to 907.
During the 1260s or shortly thereafter, the fearsome-looking Chinese sculpture reached Venice, where local artisans modified its features to create a winged lion, Vidale’s team reports September 3 in Antiquity.
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