Long-hidden 'selfie' of a medieval mason found in historic Spanish cathedral

[Judi Lynn]

By Mindy Weisberger - Senior Writer a day ago

The craftsman's identity is lost to time, but his self-portrait was set in stone



An unknown stonemason carved a self-portrait into the top of a pillar in the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral.
(Image: © Courtesy of Jennifer Alexander)


During the 11th century, an unknown, lowly medieval mason held an important job: helping to build the grand Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in northern Spain, now one of the country's most famous churches. That craftsman's identity has been lost to time, but he left behind a tribute to himself in stone — a cleverly concealed self-portrait.

Whoever this mason was, his sneakily-executed "selfie" went unnoticed for about 900 years, until it was recently spotted by an art historian during a stone-by-stone survey of the cathedral.

In the carving, a jolly-looking round face peers out over fronds of foliage. Measuring about 11 inches (28 centimeters) tall and located at the top of a pillar around 40 feet (12 meters) off the ground, the portrait was positioned so that it would go unnoticed by the cathedral's clergy, but would be easy for fellow masons to find and appreciate, ArtNet reported.

Jennifer Alexander, a scholar in the History of Art department at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom, was leading a team of experts in a painstaking search for mason's marks in the cathedral — one stone at a time — when she found "our little figure," Alexander told Live Science in an email. Her team was paying close attention to the upper parts of the building; on the ground level, many of the stones were covered by paint applied over centuries. But stones that were installed higher up retained their original surface markings, Alexander explained.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/medieval-mason-left-selfie-cathedral.html