Bronze Horses of San Marco (the Triumphal Quadriga)

Bronze Horses of San Marco (the Triumphal Quadriga)

This set of four bronze horses that originally included a quadriga (chariot for racing), after the sack of Constantinople in 1204, the horses were placed on the exterior of St Mark’s Basilica in Venice, where they remained until Napoleon took them in 1797, but were returned in 1815. The original horses are now inside the Basilica, and replicas on the exterior. Many scholars now consider a date of the 2nd-3rd century CE to be more likely than the earlier attestation of the 4th century BCE (and the sculptor Lysippos). It is unclear where they were originally made, but they were in the Hippodrome of Constantinople at least by the 8th or 9th century, when they are made mention of in a Chronicle as being from Chios and brought under the direction of Theodosius II.

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