Lion of Venice Lion of Venice The Lion of Venice is an ancient bronze winged lion sculpture in the Piazza San Marco of Venice, Italy, which came to symbolize the city — as well as one of its patron saints, St Mark — after its arrival there in the 12th century. The sculpture surmounts one of two large granite columns in the Square, thought to have been erected between 1172 - 1177 during the reign of Doge Sebastiano Ziani or about 1268, bearing ancient symbols of the two patron saints of Venice. The "Lion" sculpture has had a very long and obscure history,
San Cassiano, Venice After being removed from Venice the altarpiece was split into a number of fragments. Only three of these were found and these are now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Austria. The church also contains an early 18th-century painting of the "Martyrdom of San Cassiano" by Antonio Balestra. It depicts the saint being attacked by school children, an act which explains why Saint Cassian of Imola is the patron saint of school teachers. San Cassiano, Venice San Cassiano () is a 14th-century Roman Catholic church located in the San Polo "sestiere" of the Italian city of Venice. A church has