“… the most beautiful, grand and magnificent … that was ever done.” So Giorgio Vasari called it the floor of the Cathedral of Siena, the result of a program that was built through the ages, from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century.

The Cathedral of Siena contains numerous masterpieces of all time. The work, for most outstanding verses, is the floor, the most beautiful …, large and magnificent … that was ever done, as defined by Giorgio Vasari, the result of a program that has been carried through the ages , starting from the fourteenth to the nineteenth century. The preparatory cartoons for the fifty inlays were provided by important artists, all Senesi, except the Umbrian painter Bernardino di Betto, known as Pinturicchio, author in 1505 of the inlay with Mount of Wisdom.

The technique used to transfer the idea of ​​the various artists on the floor is of marble inlay and graffito. It began in a simple way, and then gradually reach a surprising perfection: the first inlays were dashed above white marble slabs with grooves made with the chisel and the drill, filled with black filler. This technique is called sgraffito. Then they added colored marbles combined together as in a wooden inlays: this technique is called marble inlay.