She-wolf, bronze statue, Musei Capitolini - Roma This she-Wolf was one of several ancient sculptures “returned” to the Romans at this time, an event that kick-started a fervor for Roman antiquities and led to the founding of the Capitoline Museums. The she-wolf who nursed and sheltered the infants Romulus and Remus after they were abandonedĪ famous bronze sculpture of the Capitoline She-Wolf occupied the Lateran Palace of the popes until 1471, when it was donated to the municipality of Rome by Pope Sixtus IV. In both instances wolf iconography is crucial for the teachings of the Catholic Church. Christians appropriated the symbol by believing wolves were agents of God sent to punish sinners, or agents of the Devil sent to test one’s faith. The legend of Romulus and Remus nurtured by a she-wolf therefore symbolized the warrior spirit of the Romans. Pagans associated the wolf with Mars, the god of war. For pagans and Christians it served as a sacred symbol and a reminder of the bond between this world and the next. The she-wolf represented the power of the papacy. Kept in cages on the Capitoline Hill (a scary thought- they occasionally escaped!) the lions embodied the city’s political authority until the late 15th century, when the pope’s wolf took over the lion’s territory. The city’s magistrates were so pleased they subsequently requested live lions from the Medici family in Florence. The king of Naples, Robert of Anjou, even went so far as to gift a lion to the city of Rome. "The very walls of the city have been built in the shape of a lion"Ĭola di Rienzo - politician and popular leader in the 14th century
Medieval Rome was so strongly associated with the lion that people believed the city was laid out in the shape of this beast.
It was in front of this lion that death sentences were announced and sometimes carried out. Until the Renaissance, however, it was the lion - a symbol of strength, sovereignty and justice - that embodied Rome’s secular government.ĭuring the Middle Ages, at the bottom of the grand staircase leading to the Senatorial Palace on the Capitoline Hill, was an ancient statue of a Lion attacking a Horse. Most people today think of the she-wolf as the symbol of Rome. Other than historians, there are few people who remember the lion as the powerful symbol of an independent Rome.
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