Florentine School,  17th Century, Lion With Heraldic Shield

17th century, Florentine school, 
Lion with heraldic shield
Stone, cm 38x48

The crib sculpture figures a heraldic lion in the act of proudly holding a shield, in turn elaborated in blasonatura. The lion, represented in the fullness of the first maturity, with the mane fiercely rippled and a magnificent characterization of the snout, extoflette all the claws pointing to the viewer, in its decisive expressiveness and the task of attitude, to observe the coat of arms. 
On the shield is carved the classic heraldic figure of a lion rampant to the natural, unarmed and not linguate. The animal arches decided the tail (in heraldry it describes codate) while grasping with the fore legs trunk and branch of what is probably a stylized oak; not by chance the definition of "rampant" comes from the Latin rapere, indicating the tenacious act of taking possession of something. 
Apart from the previous iconography of the lion climbing to a plant, to be found in the metaphorical force of the natural world that climbs to the tree of life, so dear to the Persian world, the present sculpture represents therefore a double affirmation of power, being a three-dimensional heraldic lion holding a coat of arms. Being therefore situated on the base of the totemic beasts raised to city emblems, this lion recalls very closely the Florentine marzocco ("little Mars"), animal symbol of the Tuscan city, that once entered the collective imagination thanks to the weather vane on the Tower of Arnolfo 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 carry the sculpture of the Leone Marzocco supporting the coat of arms of Florence, to be placed on the staircase of the papal apartments of Santa Maria Novella. The artist would imagine him sitting, just like the present, with evocative majesty. Although later the Donatello Marzocco was moved to the most suitable rooms of the Bargello Museum, a copy on the same site of Piazza della Signoria, where the work was immediately diverted, still remembers the symbol of the Florentine Republic.

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