On the left, approximately halfway down the central nave of the Cathedral of Otranto , the famous mosaic floor (1163-1165) depicts for the first time in Southern Italy the biblical scene of the construction of the Tower of Babel (Genesis, 11, 19). C.A. Willemsen, who was the first and best to study it, was able to identify a significant, but not the only, Jewish influence. He writes that the Tower scene is undoubtedly drawn from a medieval Jewish tale that speaks of two ladde
