The floor of the Siena Cathedral… It is a unique work of art in the world, a marble carpet on which great artists from Siena and beyond worked from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century. Vasari defined it as the “largest and most magnificent” floor that had ever existed and it is not difficult to understand why: each of the 56 squares, called “tarsie”, was designed by Renaissance masters, copied by marble workers and worked by stonecutters in the splendid local marbles. Pinturicchio is the author of one of the most beautiful paintings, the Mount of Wisdom, which symbolically depicts the road to virtue with a splendid depiction of Fortuna, an angelic woman who governs the destiny of men and has similar features to Botticelli’s Venus . The floor, usually covered for two thirds with special cloths that protect it from the wear of time and from the trampling of visitors, is discovered and becomes entirely visible for a few months of the year, from mid-August, after the Palio dell’Assunta until the end of October. * * * * *
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Study Italian in Italy 