Marble has been known since ancient times. This durable, beautiful, and in some cases brightly colored stone has a special charm. All over the world there are many types of marble. Some are more famous, others less. Carrara marble belongs without a doubt to the category of its best varieties. It will be discussed further.
Excursion into the past
Among the Aluan Alps, in Tuscany, there is a small provincial town of Carrara, which means stone quarry. During the time of the Roman Empire, a settlement of masons appeared at this place, extracting marble of amazing beauty. Since then, the history of Carrara began.
Decades, centuries passed, states changed, after the Goths came, then Byzantium, Germans, Florentines, but no matter what, 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 Carrara is a small town with a population of less than 70 thousand people and a well-developed infrastructure. Among the attractions worth mentioning is the famous Carrara Cathedral, which is located on Cathedral Square, the unfinished Giant statue located on the same square, the Kibo Malaspin Palace and the rather famous monastery of St. Francis.
Also, the city has a well-established trade and tourism business. Nevertheless, Carrara receives the main income and fame from the extraction of marble.
Carrara marble: sculpture
From the unusually beautiful and expensive Carrara stone, the 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 does not cease to amaze even now.
And the famous composition Pieta, made by the same Michelangelo. Now it is located in the Vatican in one of the most famous shrines of the entire Orthodox world in St. Peter's Basilica. The master managed to embody in stone all that mass of emotions on Mary's face, all the deepest sorrows of her mother for her lost son Jesus.
Also very famous is a sculpture carved from the same material under the name "Abduction of Proserpine." According to the master Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, sculpting this composition, he managed to make marble a plastic material. Thanks to this skill, I managed to make a lot of masterpieces, such as Ecstasy of Blessed Louis Albertoni and Apollo and Daphne.
Products and buildings in other countries
And in other places Carrara marble is also very famous. Photos of products from it are a great many 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, from a snow-white Carrara stone, a beautiful mosque strikes with its splendor. In Delhi, the eleventh million city, the second most populous in India after Mumbai, this material was used to decorate the Hindu temple complex. Carrara marble was involved in the construction of the Peace Monument in Washington. And this is far from a complete list ...
At present, this material continues to be in great demand and popularity. It makes tiles for floors and walls, various decorative and building elements for decoration and even makes furniture elements, and all the furniture as a whole.
So here it is - Carrara marble, which has passed through centuries and continues to delight everyone around.