Siena Find #1: Chris Ware Cameo

In July I took a two-week trip to Tuscany, and spent most of it in Siena. I have a couple of things to report from that trip, and I'm hoping to get the other major one up on the blog before the Labor Day weekend is over. Here's the first: a surprising cameo from an easy-to-recognize character, in a place I'd never have expected to see him.

So: Siena has a very famous cathedral, covered inside and out with elaborate gothic ornament, not far from the center of town.

And around the back of the cathedral is the Baptistery.

Here's the door through which you enter the Baptistery:



Before you enter, however, you may notice that a mat is covering (and protecting) an elaborate inlay marble mosaic on the pavement outside the entrance.



If you look more closely at the mosaic figures there near the corner of the mat...



(No, better tug the mat aside so you can see them more clearly.)



I bet you'd wonder why Jimmy Corrigan, of all people, would be decorating a 14th-century Sienese cathedral!