Bridge of Lions

You're standing at the downtown end of the Bridge of Lions, where St. Augustine reaches across Matanzas Bay to Anastasia Island. Find the two white marble lions guarding the approach, one on either side. The bridge takes its name from them. And they're a fitting place to end, because the man who gave them never got to see them here.

His name was Dr. Andrew Anderson. He was a medical doctor, a former mayor of St. Augustine, and the builder of a grand house called Markland. In the last decade of his life, Anderson made a kind of mission of putting works of art in public places around the Ancient City. A decade earlier, the Romanelli Studios in Florence, Italy had made him smaller lions, which he set on the front steps at Markland.

You've walked down from the Plaza to the water's edge, and in front of you the Bridge of Lions reaches across Matanzas Bay toward Anastasia Island. Before you look at the towers or the drawbridge in the middle, look at the foot of the bridge on this side. Two white marble lions are keeping watch. They're the reason for the name, and they have a better story than the bridge itself.

The man who gave them was Dr. Andrew Anderson, a physician and a former mayor of St. Augustine, who spent the last decade of his life putting art in public places in the Ancient City. He had these lions made by the Romanelli Studios in Florence, Italy. They're Carrara marble copies of the Medici lions in Florence's Loggia dei Lanzi.