Monument to the Lion of Judah patriot and national hero. The work was made by the French sculptor Georges Gardet in 1930, on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Hailé Selassié on November 2, 1930. At the end of the so-called March of the Iron Will (in italian: "Marcia della ferrea volontà") that led to the occupation of Addis Ababa by the Italian army, the statue was transported to Rome, Italy in 1935 at the end of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. The Lion of Judah sculpture was placed just beyond Piazza dei Cinquecento, under the obelisk of the Italian Heroes of the Battle of Dogali
Lion of Judah it continues to be an important symbol among members of the Rastafari movement. The biblical Judah (in Hebrew: "Yehuda") is the eponymous ancestor of the Tribe of Judah, which is traditionally symbolized by a lion. In Genesis, the patriarch Jacob ("Israel") gave that symbol to this tribe when he refers to his son Judah as a "Gur Aryeh" גּוּר אַרְיֵה יְהוּדָה, "Young Lion" (Genesis 49:9) when blessing him. In Jewish naming tradition the Hebrew name and the substitute name are often combined as a pair, as in this case. The Lion of Judah was used as a Jewish symbol for