Im a simple gal who loves adventure, nature
and dogs Im a perfectionist too
Medici lions
Updated on
Edit
Like
Comment
Share
Sign in
Similar
Medici Vase, Menelaus supporting the body, Marzocco, Hercules and Cacus, Venus de' Medici
The Medici lions are a pair of marblesculptures of lions, one of which is of ancient origin, the other a 16th-century pendant; both were by 1598 placed at the Villa Medici, Rome, and since 1789 have been displayed at the Loggia dei Lanzi, Florence. The sculptures depict standing male lions with a sphere or ball under one paw, looking to the side. The Medici lions have been copied, directly or with variations, in many other locations.
A pair of lions were required by Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who had acquired the Villa Medici in 1576, to serve as majestic ornaments for the villa's garden staircase, the Loggia dei leoni. The first lion originates from a 2nd-century marble that was first mentioned in 1594, by the sculptor Flaminio Vacca, by which time it was already in the collection of Ferdinando; Vacca reported that it had been found in the via Prenestina, outside Porta San Lorenzo. According to Vacca, the lion had been a relief, which was carved free of its background and reworked by "Giovanni Sciarano" or Giovanni di Scherano Fancelli, of whom little is now known.
The second was made and signed by Vacca, also in marble, as a pendant to the ancient sculpture at a date variously reported as between 1594 and 1598 or between 1570 and 1590. The pair were in place at the Loggia dei Leoni in 1598 The pendant was made from a capital that had come from the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus.
The sculptures were replaced by copies at the Villa Medici when Napoleon relocated the French Academy in Rome to the villa in 1803. These copies were made by the French sculptor Augustin Pajou.
Copies
The original Medici lions (1598) are since 1789 standing at the Loggia dei Lanzi, Piazza della Signoria, Florence. There is smaller bronze left-looking sculpture attributed to Italian sculptor Pietro da Barga and the same period. Later copies or replicas include (ordered by first year):
Spain
Twelve sculptures in bronze by Matteo Bonucelli da Lucca, commissioned in Rome by Velázquez for the Room of Mirrors at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid (1651):
Four sculptures are now in the Salón del Trono in the Royal Palace of Madrid (since 1764).
Sculptures at the Stanley Park, Blackpool (2013). These were produced, by Rupert Harris Conservation, using casts from the former sculptures which were returned, on loan, to Stowe house in 2013.
Six pairs of marble lion sculptures at the Voronstov Palace, Crimea (installed in 1848).
Pair of lion sculptures at Starosinnyi Garden, Odessa (now Ukraine, unknown year).
Italy
Sculptures in marble by Augustin Pajou at the Villa Medici (1803).
Germany
Four miniature versions surrounding the Akademie- or Löwenbrunnen in the palace garden (1807–1811), Stuttgart.
Two gilded versions as part of the Lion Fountain in front of Glienicke Palace (1824–26), Berlin.
Statues at the entrance of Schloss Monrepos, Ludwigsburg (of unknown origin).
Cuba
Two versions outside the Cathedral de la Purisma Concepción in Cienfuegos (built 1833–69), Cuba.
United States
The Florentine Lions in cast-iron in the Fairmount Park, Philadelphia (cast in 1849 at the Alexandroffsky Head Mechanical Works, St Petersburg, Russia for Andrew M. Eastwick, originally displayed at Bartram's Garden, 1851–1879, installed at west Fairmount Park in 1887).
Stone sculptures, Mick and Mack, at McMicken Hall, The University of Cincinnati, Ohio (there since 1904). The pair of lions originally belonged to Jacob Hoffner, a wealthy Cincinnati landowner who bequeathed them to the University upon his death in 1891. They were transported to their current location in 1904.
The Swedish lion in bronze in Narva, Estonia. A version of one of the Slottslejonen was first erected in 1936 but destroyed 1944 during the German occupation. A sized-down copy of the Medici Lion in the Royal Swedish Academy of Arts was re-erected in 2000.
Lithuania
Sculptures of lions are in bronze at the staircase of the Vytautas the Great War Museum in Kaunas, Lithuania. They were donated by Lithuanian count Jonas Julius Tiškevičius (1917–1987) in 1938 from his Astravas Manor in Biržai suburb (decorative sculptures of lions that stood at the entrance to the manor were replaced with copies). Sculptures was made in Saint Petersburg's factory commissioned by Lithuanian count Jonas Tiškevčius in the middle of the 19th century.
Spain: The Leones del Congreso: Daoiz y Velarde in bronze at the Congress of Deputies, Madrid, Cast in 1865, installed 1872.
Finland: Parolan Leijona (Finnish for The Lion of Parola) on a four meter high pedestal in Hattula. Erected in 1868 to commemorate the 1863 visit by Alexander II of Russia.
In popular culture
Downsized copies of the Medici lions are on display in the garden of the Corleone family estate in The Godfather (1972).
