The preparation of the park in the Giardini Margherita for the 1888 Emilian Exhibition led to the discovery by Edoardo Brizio (1846-1907), director of the Civic Museum from 1887 to 1907, of around 20 tombs from the Etruscan period, adding to the more than 170 previously found by Zannoni. The rich 6th-5th century BC Etruscan burial ground yielded precious grave goods and important funerary stones such as this sandstone lion, which guarded the passage between life and the afterlife.