The Lion of Toffia

On the wall running along Piazza Umberto I in Toffia there is the limestone statue of a lion, today very damaged and with no legs and part of the face – seemingly coming from a Roman tomb located along the Via Salaria and dated between the II Century b.C. and the Augustan age.

The Lion of Toffia, together with other artifacts scattered around the country, was part of a bishop’s throne in the Church of St. Lawrence. In a 1681 deed (full descritpion below, but also quoted in the dedicated sheets) it is reported a 82 years old witness’ declaration on that, properly:

“I have always seen and observed in that church towards the high altar of St. Lawrence martyr […] to the part of the gospel, there was a large stone chair fixed on the wall, as you can sit in a chair by a man-made from episcopal see and from others publicly. There was such a stone chair because the church of S. Lorenzo di Toffia was the second home in Sabina, and I remember very clearly that when the chorus on that altar was[…] threatened by destruction, in 1664, was demolished, and done it again for the foundations of St. Lawrence chapel in the same church, in that time masons was removed.

Leftovers of that chair are still dispersed in the country, that is to say the pedestal remained in their own church, that is to say a cornu altar epistles; a bust of the lion, which was once walled in the parapet of the fountain; a side of the chair is placed at the site of the seditore (The sitter) voc. Piazzetta [ “with other stones involved in the same chair”], the house once belonging to the Fido family and now to Vincenzo Paoletti, while the other can be seen on the door said the Gate … “