Lion of St. Mark

[baldeagle]

The Lion of St. Mark in the famous emblem of the 87a Squadrigilia on their Ansaldos holds a book. What does it say? Is it from the gospel of St. Mark? It looks like "pax tibi marce vangelista emeus"?

[StephenLawson]

Originally posted by baldeagle@Jan 18 2004, 09:55 AM
[b] The Lion of St. Mark in the famous emblem of the 87a Squadrigilia on their Ansaldos (and 72a on their Hanriot HD types) holds a book. What does it say? Is it from the gospel of St. Mark? It looks like "pax van tibi geli marsta ce emeus"?

It reproduces the classic lion of St. Mark, more or less as it is seen over the famous high column which is so well visible when one is approaching Venice from the sea. Also on the Church bearing his name and supposedly his bones. On the original statue the tablets held by the lion carries the Latin inscription: "PAX TIBI MARCE EVANGELISTA MEUM" (may peace be with you, Mark, my evangelist.)

[baldeagle]

Is it from the Gospel of St. Mark?

[StephenLawson]

Originally posted by baldeagle@Jan 19 2004, 08:59 PM
[b] Is it from the Gospel of St. Mark?

Not the KJV Greek texts. More likely from Latin texts in the Catholic benedictions.

[Angiolillo]

Hello!

A local legend from Venice says that when Marcus passed by the city, an angel appeared him and greeted him with that sentence. Then he told him that he would find his final rest in Venice. Marcus went to Egypt to cfopnvert the local population and he was killed (the angel appeared him a few seconds before his death and repeated the same sentence). Two Venetian fishers (Rustico da Torcello and Buono da Malamocco) went there and after a tough search found and recovered the Saint's body.

The lion is the symbol of the evangelist (like the eagle for St. Johan, the ox for St. Luke and the angel for St. Mattew). When the four Sea Republic of Genoa, Pisa, Venice and Amalfi ruled a good part of the Mediterranean traffic, the Most Serene Repulic of Venice (in short, "La Serenissima") choosed the lion with the book as a symbol, but the exact way to depict it has never been ruled by its laws so there are several variants (by the way, the Italian Air Force did the same with cockades in WWI: they just gave the colors but not the order, and every flight interpreted the rules in his own way: that's why you have both green/white/red and red/white/green cockades on our WWI planes). There is a rumor that peacetime galleys had a flag with the lion holding the open book, and wartime ones a flag with the closed book in one "hand" and a sword pointing up in the other, but there seems to be no historical evidence of it.

The lion is depicted on many monuments, beside the rest, and it is still the symbol of the city of Venice. But the symbol of 87a was a complete flag as it was supposed to be on medieval/Renaissance galleys. The writing has to be in capital letters and with "V" instead of "U" (both usual things in Latin) and it must be on 4 lines on each page:


PAX - EVAN
TIBI - GELI
MAR - STA
CE - MEVS

Bye bye!

Andrea

[Lufbery]

Thanks for the background legend!

Does anyone have a picture to post? I'd love to see it on a plane.

Regards,

[StephenLawson]

I don't have one to post but check out the old Hanriot HD.1 Datafile ( the caption is misidentified and should be 72a Squadriglia.) Also the JGMT 1/48 scale HD.1 kit has decals.

[CodyPaul]

Theres a few pictures here. They're not of a Hanriot though. Unfortunately I don't read or speak Italian so I don't have a clue what its trying to say.

http://vastocom.clio.it/SVA5/foto.htm

[Angiolillo]

Hello!

Several Hanriot had the lion of Venice even if they were not from 87a "La Serenissima". If I remember well, even one captured by Austrians. See also the last Datafile about Hanriot by Gregory Alegi.

The writing on the nose of the Ansaldo SVA 5 seen on the link above are the place and dates of the missions: Bolzano (Bozen in German), Franzenfest, Innsbruck... The plane is a 9/10 replica of the SVA at the IAF Museum in Vigna di Valle, Bracciano (on the lake just north of Rome):
http://airpower.callihan.cc/HTML/PoWArchiv.../PoW6-10-02.htm

"La Serenissima" is mainly famous for the raid over Wien the 9th of August, 1918. The original SVA used by Gabriele D'Annunzio to lead it is now at "il Vittoriale", the house-museum of the poet, and it has been recently restored by the Gruppo Amici Velivoli Storici:
http://www.fly-net.org/gavs/sva1.html

The Museo Caproni of Trento (northern Italy) has another Ansaldo SVA from "La Serenissima":
http://www.aeroclub.cz/img/Ansaldo%20SVA5%2001.jpg
http://www.aeroclub.cz/img/Ansaldo%20SVA5%2003.jpg
On the other side, just a single writing for the famous "volo su Vienna" of the 9th of august (if you click in the lower right corner to enlarge you can read "...a 9 agosto 1918"):
http://www.aeroclub.cz/img/Ansaldo%20SVA5%2002.jpg

In the end, here you have a kit with "La Serenissima" decals:
http://www.internetmodeler.com/2001/june/f...oroszy_SVA5.htm


Bye!

A.

[Angiolillo]

Hello again!

Here we are after I went to Gregory Alegi's home and borrowed a book he edited, "In volo per Vienna" (published by the Museo Caproni and the Museo della Guerra of Rovereto).
The 87a was founded the 2nd of february, 1918 on Ansaldo SVAs, thye only model of planes that it had up to the end of the war. The lion of St. Marcus was usually on both sides of the fuselage and it was choosen, together with the name "La Seremissima", because most of the pilots were from the Veneto region (not necessarly from Venice - the commander Capitano Masprone was from verona, Granzarolo from Padova, Finzi from Legnago, Ferrarin from Thiene).
There were two different lions on the planes. The most common is the one above in the picture: the standard lion that we discussed. I had to correct what I wrote before - the book says:

PAX - VAN
TIBI - GELI
MAR - STA
CE E - MEVS

Ther lower one was on the two-seater of Palli and D'Annunzio (SVA 12736) and it was painted by the painter Piero Marussing: the book was closed, the lion was in a square and had a sword in its fist, and the scroll under it had the writing "ITERVM RVDIT LEO" (iterum rudit leo = the lion roars again). Only that two seater had it during the raid over Vienna, but the book depicts also another SVA from "La Serenissima" (SVA 12894) with the same variant, after a forced landing on the top of a house.

The Italian Navy has a flag with a shield that includes the four symbols of the four Maritime Republics of Genoa, Pisa, Amalfi and Venice. There are two flags, one for the civilian fleet and one for the military navy (see bottom of http://www.radiomarconi.com/marconi/storiabandiera/ ), and they both ave the lion of St. Marcus in the two variants.

The shield of the Italian Air Force (http://www.aeronautica.difesa.it/htm/stemma.asp) also has four symbols, all after famous WWI Squadriglie: a kind of Chimera with torch after the "X Squadriglia Farman" (recon and lighht bombing), the griffin after 91a (fighters), the four-leaf clover after the "10ª Squadriglia da bombardamento Caproni" (bombers). St. Marcus' lion is here again again to celebrate "La Serenissima", the most famous squadron of recon thanks to the celebrated raid over Vienna. The variant on the flag is Marussing's one, with closed book and sword.