564 Br. Du Riche Preller — The Carrara Marble District. 



Jiy far the largest proportion of marble in the Carrara division— 

 the principal quarries of which are shown in the plan, Fig. VI — is the 

 common white, the bianco chiaro, and the semi-statuary, the latter 

 being used for colossal statues and columns exposed to the action of 

 the atmosphere. 



The finest statuary marble — the statuario proper — distinguished 

 alike by its intense cream-colour, its transparency, its homogeneous 

 but not too crystalline grain, its bell-like sound under the hammer, 

 and the ease of being worked with the chisel, occurs only in smaller 

 masses, yielding comparatively small blocks for the finest sculptural 

 purposes. In the Massa division, statuary marble only occurs in one 

 locality, at Bottecini, near Forao, in the Frigido Valley, but the 

 lenticular mass is depreciated by chloritic veins. The ordinary 

 white marble of that division, in the Rosceto and Kenara valleys, is 

 less pellucid than that of Carrara, but more fine-grained, and dis- 

 tinguished by its peculiar pearly lustre, albeit with a tendency to 

 become too dolomitic in contact with tbe underlying grezzoni. It 

 also forms occasional small cavities containing bright quartz crystals 

 known as stelle, or stars. To the same category belong the marble 

 beds of the Ami, Sumbra, and Tambura zones, while the great mass 

 of the Monte Altissinio, Giardino, and Falcovajazonein the Seravezza 

 division is in all respects fully equal to the best ordinary, bianco 

 chiaro, and finest statuary marble of Carrara. Similar to this is the 

 Monte Corchia marble (Fig. Ill) of the Stazzema division, in which 

 latter also occur considerable masses of fine breccia. The isolated 

 beds of the Seravezza division are all composed of a common, very 

 resistant, bluish-white marble, with occasional dark veins, together 

 with fine blue and veined bardiglio, which equals that of the Para bed 

 of Carrara. Near Colonnata, Carrara, there also occurs a peculiarly 

 black saccharoidal marble associated with the lower grezzoni, the dark 

 colour being probably due to organic impregnations. The pietra 

 bianca of Stazzema — as distinguished from marble proper — is a semi- 

 crystalline cipollini variety and, like grezzoni (from grezzo, coarse, 

 with rhomboidal fracture), a so-called ' bastard ' marble. 



Very characteristic is the frequent graduation of ordinary white 

 and bianco chiaro marble into statuary, and vice versa, in the contact 

 and alternation zones of the underlying grezzoni, where rows and 

 patches of so-called madrimacchie, or mothermarks, faintly indicate 

 the former lines of stratification obliterated by the action of meta- 

 morphism. These brown or ochre marks are obviously impurities 

 infiltrated from the adjoining grezzoni and . precipitated by the 

 saccharoidal marble during crystallization, a process which imparted 

 to the statuary marble its high degree of purity. In contact with 

 the overlying nodulous limestone, cavernous grezzoni, or with cipollini, 

 the passage is effected by alternating bands, and the same applies to 

 the contact with bardiglio, which latter alternates with white marble 

 until one or the other predominates. Again, in contact with the 



monoliths. The Altissimo quarries and a road of access were opened in 1518 

 by Michelangelo, whose modest little cottage is still to be seen at Seravezza 

 with the incisive inscription put by himself : "In questa casa abito Michelangelo 

 Buonarotti per domar le asprezze di questo paese." 



