Carrara marble is famous all over the world

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Marble has been known since ancient times. This durable, beautiful, and in some cases brightly colored stone has a certain charm to it. There are many types of marble all over the world. Some are more famous than others. Carrara marble belongs to the category of its best varieties without any doubt. It will be discussed further.

A trip to the past

Among the Aluan Alps, in Tuscany, there is a small provincial town of Carrara, which means a quarry in translation. During the Roman Empire, a settlement of stonemasons arose on this site, extracting amazingly beautiful marble. Since then, the history of Carrara began.

Decades, centuries, states changed, after Rome came the Goths, then Byzantium, Germans, Florentines, but, in spite of everything, Carrara marble continued to enjoy well-deserved fame. Italian Carrara became in the second half of the 19th century, after the unification of Italy.

Carrara now

Now Carrarais a small town with a population of less than 70 thousand people and a well-developed infrastructure. Of the sights, it is worth mentioning the famous Carrara Cathedral, which is located on the Cathedral Square, the unfinished statue of the "Giant", located on the same square, the Kibo Malaspina Palace and the rather famous monastery of St. Francis.

Also, the city has a well-established trade and tourism business. Nevertheless, the main income and fame Carrara receives from the extraction of marble.

Carrara marble sculpture

From the extraordinarily beautiful and expensive Carrara stone, famous masters of the Renaissance and Baroque sculpted true masterpieces. Take, for example, the statue of David by Michelangelo. For two years, the master worked on the future statue and created a truly masterpiece that never ceases to amaze even now.

And the famous Pieta composition, made by the same Michelangelo. Now she is in the Vatican in one of the most famous shrines of the entire Orthodox world in St. Peter's Cathedral. The master managed to embody in stone all that mass of emotions on the face of Mary, all the deepest sorrow of the mother for the dead son Jesus.

Also very famous is a sculpture carved from the same material called "The Abduction of Proserpina". According to the master Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, who sculpted this composition, he managed to make marble a plastic material. Thanks to this skill, it turned out to make a lot more masterpieces, such as "The Ecstasy of Blessed Ludovica Albertoni" and "Apollo andDaphne.”

Products and buildings in other countries

And in other parts of the world Carrara marble is also very famous. There are a lot of photos of products from it on the Internet. In London, there is the famous Marble Arch, which is a true decoration of Haydn Park. In Manila, the capital of the Philippines, this material was used in the construction and decoration of the cathedral.

In Abu Dhabi, a beautiful mosque made of snow-white Carrara stone impresses with its splendor. In Delhi, a city of eleven million, the second largest in India after Mumbai, this material was used in the decoration of a Hindu temple complex. Carrara marble was used in the construction of the Peace Monument in Washington. And this is far from a complete list…

At the present time, this material continues to be in great demand and popularity. It is used to make floor and wall tiles, various decorative and building elements for interior decoration, and even furniture elements, and all furniture as a whole.

This is how it is - Carrara marble, which has passed through the centuries and continues to delight everyone around.