17th century, Florentine school, Lion with heraldic shield

17th century, Florentine school

Lion with heraldic shield

Stone, 38 x 48 cm

The present sculpture depicts a heraldic lion proudly holding a shield, which in turn has been decorated with blazon. The lion, represented in the fullness of his early maturity, with a ferociously ruffled mane and a magnificent characterization of the muzzle, ejects all his claws, indicating to the spectator, in his decisive expressiveness and in the incumbency of his attitude, to observe the coat of arms.

The classic heraldic figure of a natural rampant lion, without weapons and without a tongue, is sculpted on the shield. The animal firmly arches its tail (in heraldry it is described as tailed) while it grasps the trunk and branch of what is probably a stylized oak tree with its front legs; it is no coincidence that the definition of "rampant" derives from the Latin rapere, indicating the tenacious act of taking possession of something.

Regardless of the iconographic precedents of the lion rampant on a plant, to be found in the metaphorical force of the natural world climbing the tree of life, so dear to the Persian world, the present sculpture therefore represents a double affirmation of power, being a lion heraldic, three-dimensional, holding a coat of arms. Therefore, following the totemic beasts that became city emblems, this lion closely resembles the Florentine marzocco ("little Mars"), the symbolic animal of the Tuscan city, which in ancient times entered the collective imagination thanks to the weather vane on the Arnolfo Tower of Palazzo Vecchio (now located in front of the Salone dei 500). It is no coincidence that the Florentine Republic, on the occasion of the visit of Pope Martin V, commissioned Donatello (1419-1420) to create the sculpture of the Marzocco Lion supporting the coat of arms of Florence, to be placed on the staircase of the papal apartments of Santa Maria Novella. The artist depicted him sitting, just like the present, with an evocative majesty. Even if Donatello's Marzocco was later moved to more suitable rooms in the Bargello Museum, a copy on the same site in Piazza della Signoria, where the work was immediately diverted, still recalls the symbol of the Florentine republic today.

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