The lion has always been a test, a challenge for artists, for sculptors of all times.

A theme that has maintained its evocative power of courage, royalty, protection, throughout the centuries. There are testimonies from ancient times, from the 5th century BC in Sri Lanka to the Giza Sphinx of the 3rd century BC; from the lion-bearing columns that protected the entrances of medieval churches to Marzocco by Donatello  to Daniel and the Lion by Gian Lorenzo Bernini; from the four 19th-century lions of Trafalgar Square, a work by Edwin Landseer, to the recent fifth lion, flaming red, by the multimedia artist Es Devlin, created with the support of Google Arts & Culture.

Often placed at the entrance of churches, palaces, bridges, with the symbolic function of guardianship, it has never lost its power and centrality within the history of art.

This also happened in Brescia, the Lioness of Italy, thanks to sculptor Domenico Ghidoni (1857 - 1920) and to an important commission in the context of the urbanistic update that became necessary in the 1880s, after the construction of the railway station.

Two monumental lions for the Lioness: this was the idea of Antonio Tagliaferri, the architect in charge of the design of the current Piazza Repubblica and a prominent cultural figure of the city, closely linked to Giuseppe Zanardelli. The realization of the sculptures was entrusted to Domenico Ghidoni who imagined two gigantic figures, one standing and one sitting, towering over the two turrets of the Porta's profile. Davide Lombardi, one of the main suppliers of stones for the Vittoriano in Rome, was tasked with sourcing the blocks and in order for this work to be "all Brescian," a local stone was chosen. But something didn't go as planned and the two giants remained unfinished and unseen. Until today.