Was the Lion of Venice made in China more than 1,000 years ago? Italian scientists have evidence

It is the emblem of the Italian city. But now scientists say this ancient statue originated much further east

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Researchers have proved that the Lion of Venice statue which stands in St Mark’s Square, Venice, originated in China. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 6:00pm, 12 Oct 2024

The winged Lion of Venice watches over St Mark’s Square in the north Italian city, just as it has done for hundreds of years. But now a team of scientists in Italy have found evidence that the statue originated in China.

Having come to symbolise the city of Venice, the winged lion also happens to be the traditional emblem of the patron saint of the square it inhabits: St Mark.

Researchers have now showed that it was most likely originally a tomb guardian cast during the Tang dynasty (618-907) using bronze from the lower Yangtze River basin in southeast China. But the question of just how the 2.8-tonne statue made its way across continents to the top of a granite column in Italy sometime in the 13th century remains unanswered.

The discovery has been more than 30 years in the making. Lead archaeologist on the research team Massimo Vidale, an associate professor at the University of Padua in northern Italy, said when the statue was taken down for restoration between 1985 and 1990, scientists took the opportunity to perform various technical studies, including a lead isotope analysis.

“This is a very refined chemical analysis which measures the relative proportion between different isotopes of lead. The specific proportion between different isotopes is a kind of ID card that pinpoints precisely in the world the location of the mine from which the copper was extracted,” he said.

At the time of the tests, archives were not as rich as they are today, so scientists were not able to match the samples with the source, he said.