Medici lions

As Medici lions the two lions sculptures are called, have been erected about 1598 at the staircase of the garden side of the Villa Medici in Rome and offset 1789 in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence.

Each of these two mirror-image lion who turn their heads to each other, the paw is based on a sphere, an allusion to the six balls in the arms of the Medici. Lions of this type are referred to in the iconography and the art market as Medici lions. Through association with the Medici lions to signifiers of political power and economic wealth were, therefore, often imitated and installed at appropriate places as symbols rule.

During the 18th and 19th centuries, numerous small sculptures of Medici lions made ​​of bronze, alabaster, porcelain, etc., were produced.

The Medici lions are not to be confused with the Mazzocco, the emblematic emblem of the Republic of Florence.

History

1576 Ferdinand I de ' Medici had acquired the villa on the Pincio. He was in the garden of Villa exhibit his extensive collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities. For the stairs to the garden he gave two lions in order that were placed there in 1598. In 1787, the villa was now in possession of the Habsburgs, the two lions were brought to Florence and placed in the entrance of the Loggia dei Lanzi.

When Napoleon in 1803 made ​​the villa to the seat of the French Accademie, he had copies of the two Medici lions of the French sculptor Augustin Pajou ( 1730-1809 ) prepare and position it in the usual place on the garden side of the villa.

The Fancelli Lion

In the possession of the Medici was a fragment of a lion from an antique relief from the 2nd century BC, which has been supplemented by the sculptor Giovanni de Scherani Fancelli to a three-dimensional sculpture and the second lion served as a model.

The Vacca Lion

The second lion out of hand by Flaminio Vacca was cut from one of the capitals of the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, as a counterpart to Fancelli lion.

Replicas

Glienicke, Berlin

Royal Palace, Stockholm