The Lion of Saint Mark is the evangelist guardian of Venice: the winged bronze lion of the Great Column in Saint Mark’s Square, an oracle who answers one question per head.
| Type | Guardian / oracle |
| Place | Great Column, Saint Mark’s Square, Venice |
| Chronicle | CFA — Carnival of Venice |
| Successor | Pillar of Nothingness |
| Spanish entry | León de San Marcos |
Description
Its face shifts between the feline and the countenance of a wise old man — Mark the Evangelist channeled into the bronze. No one had asked it anything for nine hundred years.
History
Under a sphere of containment it came down from the pedestal to give thanks, and warned that the Square is an ancient place of Barbatos that must never be reconstituted. Its answers:
- The head of Eno is in Florence.
- The Lady of Shadows can be destroyed only on her own plane, at the bottom of the Gorge of Gorgias.
- The coming curse is spelled “Election… Death”.
- To the possessed one’s question: “Get married!”
In the last days, the Pillar of Nothingness stood where the Lion had been.