Ancient Spoils

At the Bacino waterfront, the entrance to Venice, there stand two enormous columns of granite. On one is a statue, made from parts of various statues, of St Theodore, who had been the patron saint of Venice before St Mark showed up (see post below) and superseded him. On the other column is a winged lion, the symbol of the evangelist Mark. Yet this statue, too, is a collage. Originally it was likely a Hellenistic sculpture, dating from around 300 BCE, from Asia Minor. Eventually, it made its way to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, and when the Venetian sacked the city in the Fourth Crusade in 1204 they brought this bronze lion back and welded wings on it to make it the animal symbol of St Mark.