Type of white or blue-grey marble popular for use in sculpture and building decor
Carrara marble
,
Luna marble
to the Romans, is a type of white or blue-grey
marble
popular for use in
sculpture
and building decor. It has been
quarried
since Roman times in the mountains just outside the city of
Carrara
in the
province of Massa and Carrara
in the
Lunigiana
, the northernmost tip of modern-day
Tuscany
, Italy.
More marble has been extracted from the over 650 quarry sites near Carrara than from any other place. The pure white
statuario
grade was used for
monumental sculpture
, as "it has a high tensile strength, can take a high gloss polish and holds very fine detail".
[1]
By the late 20th century Carrara's highest-grade marble had run out; the considerable ongoing production is of stone with a greyish tint, or streaks of black or grey on white. This is still attractive as an architectural facing, or for tiles.
History
[
edit
]
Carrara marble has been used since the time of
Ancient Rome
[2]
then called the "
Luna
marble".
In the Middle Ages, most of the quarries were owned by the Marquis
Malaspina
who in turn rented them to families of
Carrara
masters who managed both the extraction and transport of the precious material. Some of them, such as the Maffioli, who rented some quarries north of Carrara, in the Torano area, or, around 1490, Giovanni Pietro Buffa, who bought marble on credit from local quarrymen and then resold it on the Venetian market, were able to create a dense commercial network, exporting the marble even to distant locations.
[3]
Just to cite an example, starting from 1474, first the Maffioli, then the Buffa, supplied the marble for the facade of the
Certosa di Pavia
, also taking care of the transport of the material which, by ship, after having circumnavigated Italy, reached the construction site of the monastery after having sailed up the
Po
and the
Ticino
by boat.
[4]
Starting from the 16th century, Genoese stonecutters-merchants also entered this flourishing trade.
[5]
In the 17th and 18th centuries, the marble quarries were monitored by the Cybo and Malaspina families who ruled over the
Duchy of Massa and Carrara
. The family created the "Office of Marble" in 1564 to regulate the marble mining industry.
The city of
Massa
, in particular, saw much of its plan redesigned (new roads, plazas, intersections, pavings) in order to make it worthy of an Italian country's capital.
Following the extinction of the Cybo-Malaspina family, the state was ruled by the House of
Austria-Este
and management of the mines rested with them.
Massa Cathedral
is built entirely of Carrara marble and the old Ducal Palace of Massa was used to showcase the stone.
By the end of the 19th century, Carrara had become a cradle of anarchism in Italy, in particular among the quarry workers. According to a
New York Times
article of 1894, workers in the marble quarries were among the most neglected labourers in Italy. Many of them were ex-convicts or fugitives from justice. The work at the quarries was so tough and arduous that almost any aspirant worker with sufficient muscle and endurance was employed, regardless of their background.
[9]
The quarry workers and stone carvers had radical beliefs that set them apart from others.
Anarchism
and general radicalism became part of the heritage of the stone carvers. Many violent revolutionists who had been expelled from Belgium and Switzerland went to Carrara in 1885 and founded the first anarchist group in Italy.
[9]
In Carrara, the anarchist Galileo Palla remarked, “even the stones are anarchists.”
[10]
The quarry workers were the main actors of the
Lunigiana revolt
in January 1894.
Quarries
[
edit
]
The Apuan Alps above
Carrara
show evidence of at least 650 quarry sites, with about half of them currently abandoned or worked out.
[11]
The Carrara quarries have produced more marble than any other place on earth.
[12]
Working the quarries is and has always been dangerous. In September 1911, a collapsing cliff face at the Bettogli Quarry crushed 10 workers who were on lunch break under a precipice. A 2014 video made at a Carrara quarry shows workers with missing fingers, and workers performing hazardous, painfully noisy work who are not wearing protective gear of any kind.
[13]
The prize yield from Carrara quarries through millennia has been
statuario
, a pure white marble (coloring in other marbles arises from intermixture with other minerals present in the limestone as it is converted to marble by heat or pressure). However, by the end of the 20th century, the known deposits of
statuario
near Carrara were played out. The quarries continue to remove and ship up to a million tons/year of less-esteemed marble, mostly for export. This is predominantly streaked with black or grey.
[1]
Bianco Carrara classified in C and CD variations as well as Bianco Venatino and Statuarietto are by far the most common types with more expensive exotic variations such as Calacatta Gold, Calacatta Borghini, Calacatta Macchia Vecchia, Arabescato Cervaiole and Arabescato Vagli quarried throughout the Carrara area. Bardiglio has more black, and has been used since Roman times for architectural facings and floors.
[1]
Notable monuments and buildings
[
edit
]
The marble from Carrara was used for some of the most remarkable buildings in
Ancient Rome
:
It was also used in many
sculptures
of the
Renaissance
including
Michelangelo
's
David
(1501?1504)
[2]
[14]
whilst the statue to
Robert Burns
, which commands a central position in
Dumfries
, was carved in Carrara by Italian craftsmen working to
Amelia Robertson Hill
's model. It was unveiled by future UK
Prime Minister
Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery
on 6 April 1882.
[15]
Other notable occurrences include:
- Marble Arch
,
London
- Victoria Memorial, London
[16]
- Some sections of the
Palace of the Marques de Dos Aguas
,
Valencia
,
Spain
- Prem Mandir
, Vrindavan, Uttar Pradesh, India
- Duomo di Siena
,
Siena
, Italy
- Sarcophagus of St. Hedwig, Queen of Poland
,
Krakow
,
Poland
- Manila Cathedral
(interior),
Manila
,
Philippines
- First Canadian Place
,
Toronto, Ontario
,
Canada
- Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
,
Abu Dhabi
,
UAE
- Harvard Medical School
buildings, Boston, Massachusetts, US
- Oslo Opera House
, Oslo, Norway
- Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial
(Crosses and Stars of David), Normandy, France
- Peace Monument
, Washington, D.C., US
- King Edward VII Memorial
, Birmingham, UK
- Akshardham
, Delhi, India
- Aon Center (Chicago)
Chicago, Illinois, US
- Milwaukee Art Museum
, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US
- Banovina Palace
,
Novi Sad
,
Serbia
- Robba Fountain
,
Ljubljana
,
Slovenia
- Finlandia Hall
, Helsinki, Finland
- Devon Tower
, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, US
- The Rotunda (University of Virginia)
, Charlottesville, Virginia, US
- Far Eastern University
, Manila, Philippines?Administration Building
- The
Rome Italy Temple
of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
- Glasgow City Chambers
, Scotland
- General Grant National Memorial (Tomb)
, New York, New York, US
- Winter Garden Atrium
, World Financial Center, New York, New York, US
[17]
- Saadian Tombs
, Marrakesh, Morocco
Carrara marble has been designated by the
International Union of Geological Sciences
as a
Global Heritage Stone Resource
.
[18]
Use in isotopic standard
[
edit
]
Calcite
, obtained from an 80 kg sample of Carrara marble,
[19]
is used as the
IAEA
-603
isotopic
standard in
mass spectrometry
for the calibration of δ
18
O and δ
13
C.
[20]
Gallery
[
edit
]
Degradation
[
edit
]
The
black yeast
Micrococcus halobius
can colonize Carrara marble by forming a
biofilm
and producing
gluconic
,
lactic
,
pyruvic
and
succinic acids
from
glucose
, as seen in the
Dionysos Theater
of the
Acropolis
in
Athens
.
[21]
See also
[
edit
]
Notes
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
Kings
- ^
a
b
Diana E. E. Kleiner.
The Ascent of Augustus and Access to Italian Marble
(Multimedia presentation). Yale University.
- ^
Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane (1969).
Les maitres du marbre : Carrare, 1300-1600
. Paris: J. Touzot. pp. 129?192.
ISBN
9782713204685
.
- ^
Gemelli, Filippo (2021).
"L'approvvigionamento lapideo tra XIV e XV secolo nei cantieri del Duomo e della Certosa di Pavia"
(PDF)
.
MARMORA et LAPIDEA
(in Italian).
2
: 169?183.
ISSN
2724-4229
.
- ^
Klapisch-Zuber, Christiane (1969).
Les maitres du marbre : Carrare, 1300-1600
. Paris: J. Touzot. p. 192.
ISBN
9782713204685
.
- ^
a
b
A Stronghold of Anarchists
, The New York Times, 19 January 1894
- ^
No License to Serve: Prohibition, Anarchists, and the Italian-American Widows of Barre, Vermont, 1900?1920
Archived
9 October 2015 at the
Wayback Machine
, by Robin Hazard Ray,
Italian Americana
, Spring 2011
- ^
Smithsonian
,
Magical marble, that gleaming rock for the ages
(January 1992 issue, pp. 98?107)
- ^
"This mine has produced more marble than anywhere on Earth"
.
Wired UK
. 12 October 2017
. Retrieved
6 March
2022
.
- ^
[1]
Il Capo
, directed by Yuri Ancarani, Nowness.com
- ^
For Michelangelo, Carrara marble was valued above all other stone, except perhaps that of his own quarry in
Pietrasanta
.
- ^
"National Burns Collection ? Burns Statue, Dumfries with Tam O'Shanter and Souter Johnnie statues "on tour", c. 1900"
. Burnsscotland.com. Archived from
the original
on 31 July 2012
. Retrieved
5 May
2009
.
- ^
"The Queen Victoria Memorial"
.
The Royal Parks
. Retrieved
27 February
2019
.
- ^
"Resilience, Reflected in Marble"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
16 March
2021
.
- ^
"Designation of GHSR"
.
IUGS Subcommission: Heritage Stones
. Retrieved
24 February
2019
.
- ^
Department of Nuclear Sciences and Applications, IAEA Environment Laboratories (16 July 2016).
"Reference Sheet: Certified Reference Material : IAEA-603 (calcite) ? Stable Isotope Reference Material for δ
13
C and δ
18
O"
(PDF)
.
IAEA
. p. 2
. Retrieved
28 February
2017
.
- ^
"IAEA-603 , Calcite"
.
Reference Products for Environment and Trade
. International Atomic Energy Agency
. Retrieved
27 February
2017
.
- ^
Henry Lutz Ehrlich; Dianne K Newman (2009).
Geomicrobiology
(5 ed.). p. 180.
ISBN
9780849379079
.
References
[
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]
Further reading
[
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]
External links
[
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]