Two marble lion heads fashioned for the cornice of the drum of the Cathedral’s dome. Attributed to Baccio d’Agnolo 1513 - 1515. The drum of the Cathedral’s dome had been left without marble decoration from Brunelleschi’s day. A project was approved in 1507, with work starting in 1513, for the southeast side of the dome, still visible today. The work was interrupted at an early stage because it found little favor with the patrons who had commissioned it and also came in for some scathing criticism from Michelangelo Buonarroti. Consequently these two lions’ heads, identical to those already adorning the drum, were left unmounted. Lion head motifs go back to classical times, but were imbued with particular political significance in Florence. A former emblem of the medieval “Comune”, or independent municipal government, by 1513 the so-called Marzocco (lion) had been appropriated by the Medici family, partly because in that year Giovanni, son of Lorenzo il Magnifico, became pope and chose the name Leo X.