Siena's cathedral returns to fully uncover its precious marble commesso floor

by Redazione , published on 24/06/2024
Categories: Events / Disclaimer
Siena Cathedral is once again offering the public the opportunity to admire one of its most precious treasures this year: the magnificent marble commesso floor. Here are the dates.

From June 27 to July 31 and from Aug. 18 to Oct. 16, 2024, Siena Cathedral will once again offer the public the opportunity to admire one of its most precious treasures: the magnificent marble commesso floor. This extraordinary work of art, the result of a complex iconographic program developed through the centuries, from the 14th to the 19th century, will in fact be visible again in its entirety.

Defined by Giorgio Vasari as “the most beautiful [...] great and magnificent floor ever made,” the floor is composed of fifty-six inlays, whose cartoons were made by the greatest masters, all of them Sienese except Pinturicchio, who in 1505 made the inlay depicting the Mount of Wisdom. Artists who contributed to this masterpiece include Domenico Beccafumi, Neroccio di Bartolomeo, Leopoldo Maccari, and Giovanni di Stefano.

The floor was made entirely with the graffito marble commesso technique: the first inlays were engraved on white marble slabs by means of grooves created with chisel and drill, later filled with black stucco. Later, colored marbles were added, juxtaposed as in a wooden inlay. The precious marble floor is unique not only for the technique employed, but also for the significance of its figurations. These representations offer a constant invitation to wisdom, beginning in the aisles with figures from antiquity, such as sibyls and philosophers, to biblical subjects under the dome, in the chancel, and in the transept. A symbolic journey to discover the highest values of the human spirit.

For all info: www.operaduomo.siena.it

Photo © Opera della Metropolitana di Siena

Siena's cathedral returns to fully uncover its precious marble commesso floor
Siena's cathedral returns to fully uncover its precious marble commesso floor


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