Triple Dipping

The medieval sculptor Barisano of Trani made bronze doors not only for the Trani cathedral (seen here), but he seemed to have re-used his molds for the same sets of figures for bronze doors in the cathedrals of Monreale in Sicily, and Ravello on the Amalfi coast. The detail here shows on the left one of the door’s bosses, a lion head (the mouth originally had a door ring) surrounded by birds. The panel to the right, seen also at Ravello and Monreale, is Saint Eustace, a pagan German who went out hunting with his dog and was going to kill a stag. But just before he shot, he saw a miraculous cross appear suspended between the stag’s antlers and was thereby converted to Christianity. Those who like their drink may recognize the motif in the label for the German liqueur, Jagermeister.