Posted on 10/06/2025 8:15:31 AM PDT by Red Badger
View of winged Lion of Venice at Piazza San Marco in Venice, Italy. (Photo by BGStock72 on Shutterstock)
In A Nutshell
Scientific testing shows Venice’s bronze Lion of St .Mark was cast in China during the Tang Dynasty (AD 618–907), not in Europe.
Lead-isotope analysis traced the copper to the Guishan, Yaojialing, and Anji mines along China’s Lower Yangzi River.
Stylistic evidence reveals it began as a mythic tomb guardian called a zhènmùshòu, complete with horns and bat-like ears later cut away.
Venetian merchants, possibly the Polo family, may have refashioned the statue into a winged lion as Venice’s new state emblem in the 1260s.
Its long journey from Buddhist guardian to Christian symbol shows how art, trade, and belief intertwined across the medieval Silk Road.
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ROME — For more than 750 years, a massive bronze lion has watched over Venice’s Piazzetta San Marco, representing everything the maritime republic stood for: power, divine protection, and the sacred legacy of St. Mark the Evangelist. Tourists photograph it daily. Venetians revere it as the soul of their city.
New scientific evidence published in Antiquity sheds a surprising light on the statue’s origins. It turns out Venice’s most treasured symbol was cast in China during the Tang Dynasty, roughly 5,000 miles from the lagoon city where it became an icon of Western Christianity.
Lead isotope analysis conducted by researchers at the University of Padova traces the bronze statue’s metal to copper mines along China’s Lower Yangzi River, active during the Tang period between 618 and 907 AD. This discovery rewrites the story of medieval trade networks and raises questions about how a Chinese sculpture became the centerpiece of Venetian identity.
The Monster Beneath the Mane
At 13 feet long, the bronze creature doesn’t quite look like other medieval European lions, and art historians have puzzled over its features for generations. Stylistic analysis now explains why: it was likely a zhènmùshòu, a mythological tomb guardian used in Tang Dynasty China to protect the dead. These fierce hybrid creatures combined leonine features with horns, bat-like ears, and supernatural elements meant to ward off evil spirits.
Evidence of this hidden identity remains visible. Scars on the sculpture’s head show where horns were removed. Unusual human-like ears appear to be remnants of pointed, bat-like appendages that were sawed off. The creature’s bulbous nose, gnashing teeth, and distinctive muzzle all match Tang-era tomb guardians. European artistic conventions looked nothing like this.
The great bronze ‘Lion’ of St. Mark’s Square, Venice (Scarfì 1990). The statue is about 4m long from muzzle to tail and 2.2m high at the head. (Credit: Artioli et al / Antiquity)
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A Family of Merchants and a Secret Transformation
Historical records place the statue in Venice by 1293, when documents mention it already needed repairs. That timing aligns with the travels of Marco Polo’s family.
Between 1262 and 1268, Marco’s father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo Polo were trading in Bukhara before joining a diplomatic mission to the court of Kublai Khan in Khanbaliq, modern Beijing. During those same years back in Venice, the Winged Lion suddenly emerged as the republic’s official emblem, appearing on banners, seals, and monuments.
Researchers propose one possible scenario among several: the Polos may have encountered the dismantled bronze in an imperial storehouse or foundry and recognized an opportunity to transform this impressive Chinese sculpture into the powerful new symbol Venice desperately needed. How the statue actually reached Venice remains unknown.
Timing mattered. In 1261, Byzantine forces had recaptured Constantinople, crushing Venice’s dominance in the eastern Mediterranean. The republic needed a bold assertion of authority.
Depiction of Marco Polo, a Venetian merchant, explorer, and writer, holds a significant place in history for his extensive travels through Asia during the 13th century. (© Gianpiero – stock.adobe.com)
What the Metal Reveals About Its Journey
Bronze itself tells the story of an elaborate transformation. Six different phases of casting and modification are visible in the statue, representing centuries of alterations. All the earliest metalwork shares the same chemical signature, pointing to those Lower Yangzi copper deposits.
Chemical analysis shows the original bronze was a tin-copper alloy typical of Chinese metalworking traditions. Later additions used different compositions, including brass added during an 1815 restoration after Napoleon carted the broken statue to Paris.
Three new samples analyzed using advanced mass spectrometry reconfirmed earlier 1990 analyses. When researchers compared the lead isotope ratios against databases of ore deposits from Spain to Iran, only the Chinese mines matched. Isotopic fingerprints aligned specifically with the Guishan, Yaojialing, and Anji deposits, all within the Lower Yangzi region.
Casting technique provides another clue. Core pins and spacers visible on the surface match Chinese metalworking practices from the Tang Dynasty. The casting sequence suggests the sculpture originally depicted a seated guardian figure that was modified to fit onto a horizontal lion’s body.
Artisans added the flowing mane with its distinctive wave pattern, features absent from Chinese lion sculptures of the period. They removed supernatural elements, carved away horns, and reshaped the face to appear more leonine and less monstrous.
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Second hand lions ping!...............
Orange Man bad..
Return it to WalMart.
I can’t say I’m surprised. Though I’ve never though of it before, it looks Chinese in style
It’s a conglomeration of recycled Chinese statuary that used to be something else entirely...............
Venice continued to hold various Greek islands long after 1261 and even after 1453—they lost Cyprus in 1570-71 and Crete in the 1600s but still held the Ionian Islands after that.
Has it ever been determined if Marco Polo ever went swimming in swimming pools?
Everything except Japan that is because of the DIVINE WIND also known as......
Kamikaze
That scene was never in the mini series.
Don’t they read the bottom of the box in Italy?
It was written in Mandarin..................
One speculation I'd offer is that it was sent by ship (separate from any of the Polos) as far as possible - say to the Holy Land or Suez, and then brought overland to the Mediterranean shores to finish the journey. Moving it a long way by land just seems too much to ask, at least along the great length of the Silk Road route.
He must have had Amazon Prime..................
There was a battle between Venice and Genoa in 1298 near the island of Korcula (Curzola) and it is generally believed that Marco Polo took part in the battle and that’s when he became a prisoner. (Some argue for a different battle.) So anyway he was back in Italy before 1298.
The maximum Mongol extension into eastern Europe was earlier in the 1200s, well before Marco Polo’s time. They destroyed the city of Kiev.
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