"The statues of two lions still guard the entrance to the Arsenal. They were brought home from Athens as booty by Francesco Morosini after the reconquest of Morea in 1678. The seated one was once part of a fountain of Piraeus. The carved inscription in runic characters probably refers to the brutal repression of the Greeks by the vernighi (Scandinavian mercenaries in the pay of Byzantium) in 1040." (Venice, Knopf Guides, pg. 178)
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