Medici lions
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The two lion sculptures that were erected around 1598 on the staircase on the garden side of the Villa Medici in Rome and moved to the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence in 1789 are called Medici Lions .
Each of these two mirror-image lions, with their heads turned towards each other, rests their paws on a ball, an allusion to the six balls in the Medici coat of arms. Lions of this type are called Medici lions in iconography and in the art trade . Through the association with the Medici, the lions became symbols of political power and economic wealth, which is why they were often imitated and installed in appropriate places as symbols of power.
During the 18th and 19th centuries, numerous small sculptures of Medici lions made of bronze, alabaster, porcelain, etc. were produced.
The Medici Lions should not be confused with the Marzocco , the emblematic heraldic animal of the Republic of Florence .
history
In 1576 Ferdinand I de 'Medici had acquired the villa on the Pincio . He had his extensive collection of Greek and Roman antiquities exhibited in the garden of the villa . For the stairs to the garden, he commissioned two lions, which were placed there in 1598. In 1787, the villa was now owned by the Habsburgs, the two lions were brought to Florence and placed in the entrance of the Loggia dei Lanzi.
When Napoleon made the villa the seat of the French Academy in 1803 , he had copies of the two Medici lions made by the French sculptor Augustin Pajou (1730–1809) and placed in the traditional location on the garden side of the villa.
The Fancelli lion
The Medici owned a fragment of a lion from an ancient relief from the 2nd century BC. BC, which was completed by the sculptor Giovanni de Scherani Fancelli to a three-dimensional sculpture and served as a model for the second lion.
The vacca lion
The second lion from the hand of Flaminio Vacca was cut from a capital from the temple of Juppiter Capitolinus , as a counterpart to the Fancelli lion.
Replicas
Osborne House , United Kingdom
Glienicke Palace , Berlin
Royal Palace, Stockholm
Individual evidence
- ^ Augustin Pajou: Royal sculptor, 1730-1809
- ↑ Giovanni Giusti Galardi: The statues of the Loggia della Signoria ... Florence 2002 p 129
- ↑ Galardi 2002.
literature
- Michel Hochmann: Villa Medici, il sogno di un Cardinale - Collezioni e artisti di Ferdinando de 'Medici . 1999, pp. 208-11, plates 37-40.
- Le statue della Loggia della Signoria a Firenze: capolavori restaurati. Catalogo a cura di Giovanna Giusti. Firenze 2002. ISBN 88-09-02619-5
