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Read the following passage and answer questions. (From 21 to 30) On the popular Twitter hashtag #notalion, medieval historians and aficionados share the most un-leonine lions from the Middle Ages. One on the edge of an illuminated manuscript smiles gently, its flat face almost human; another from the 11th century seems to smirk with pride at the glory of his mane that radiates like the sun. Why do these lions look, well, not like lions? In early Christian and Romanesque sculpture, " the physiognomy of the lion gradually loses more and more of its animal aspect, and tends, though quaintly, to the human," The obvious explanation is that there weren't that many lions in medieval Europe to model for artists, and the accessible representations for copying had the same lack of realism. However, an art historian points out, there actually were a numbers of lions on the continent, imported from Africa and Asia: There are many accounts of their presence and even their breading, first at various courts and then in the cities; they were kept in Rome by the popes as early as 1100. The city of Florence had lions in the 13th century; lions were at Ghent's court in the 15th century. So, it's not impossible that first-hand accounts of lions were available to artists _ an artist made a drawing of a lion ' al vif' ['from life'] in the 13th century-though where he saw the animal is unknown. The inaccuracy of medieval lions may have been a stylistic preference, particularly in a bestiary, or compendium of beasts. Because the artists chose to illustrate the animals rather than their accompanying moralisations, they had more freedom of choice in their imagery. for example, the picture in the 12th or 13th - century Ashmole Bestiary, in which a big lion is depicted as cowering in terror at a rooster, relates this supposed cowardly attribute of the lion! Lions were also prevalent on medieval door knockers, where they were represented as stern guardians. They regularly appeared on the heraldry of European royalty, their predatory poses symbolising authority and a noble independence. There was likely some hearsay involved in the imperfect medieval lions, yet the artists were often breaking with nature to express an idea. Rather than mistakes, these #notalion specimens can be viewed as artistic decisions, albeit ones which appear delightfully strange to our modern eyes. Which of the following inferences may be made from this sentence in the passage? " They regularly appeared on the heraldry of European royalty, their predatory poses symbolising authority and a noble independence ..."

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