Obliteration? Cross-cultural relationships and hidden foreign influences in 12th-century Pisan art and law

The Pisa Griffin is the largest surviving medieval bronze statue of Islamic origin and, until 1828, it was located above the apse of the Cathedral of Pisa, now substituted by a cement copy. The “commenda”, on the other hand, was a kind of joint venture used in the Middle Ages to finance commercial voyages, typically sea voyages. Combining legal history and art history, this article assumes that the mysterious Pisa Griffin and the “commenda” - or “societas maris” according to the statutes of Pisa - could have something in common. As the Islamic origin of the bronze griffin has long been “obliterated”, in fact, so could have the Islamic origin of one of the most debated legal institution of commercial law history.