Carrara marble

Carrara marble is undoubtedly the most famous marble in the world and most appreciated by artists and architects.

Due to its bright white color and black and gray veining, it was considered the perfect marble par excellence in ancient times and a few millennia after the discovery of the first deposits, it still maintains its primacy of purity (Calcium Carbonate = 98%).

This stone is extracted in the Apuan Alps, in the Massa Carrara area.
It seems that the quarries were already used during the Iron Age by the Ligurians of Ameglia, near La Spezia, while the actual extractions began in Roman times, with Julius Caesar, but it was in the Renaissance that this material was successful bigger: in 1497 Michelangelo Buonarroti personally went to the white quarries to find the most suitable marble to make the Pietà and other artists such as Donatello, Canova and Bernini chose Carrara marble for sculptures and monuments that are still a flag of Italy in the world.

The marble extracted in the Carrara area is present in many types that are distinguished from each other by the nuances and veins that characterize them: here we will mention a few.

White Carrara marble is the most classic and well-known type and is divided into “Bianco C”, with a whiter background, and “Bianco CD”, with a slightly grayer background.
It is a material with a homogeneous and thin grain and a particular shine, capable of giving great luminosity to the rooms.

Here is the link for Carrara white marble page

Another type of white is Statuario, of great prestige, with a uniform white background with slight gray or gold-coloured veins.
It is a marble present in limited quantities, very expensive and used in the most luxurious homes.

Calacatta is another variant with a fine grain, warm white in color with gray shades but also of different shades depending on the place of extraction as it is not extracted only in Carrara but also in other points of the Apuan Alps: there are types of Calacatta with golden veins, another with purple hues and yet another with gray and golden veins together. The natural nuances of the stone make this material very refined.

Bardiglio is also extracted in Carrara but, unlike the materials mentioned so far, it is dark gray in color with fine veins in various shades of gray and some small white streaks.
It is very suitable for elegant floors and walls.

What are the most common areas of use of Carrara marble?

We have already mentioned the fact that Carrara marble has been widely used in history to make statues, sculptures, works of art and prestigious buildings.
It is a marble that can be used outdoors as it is remarkably strong but which today is mainly used indoors for floors, walls, bathrooms, kitchen shelves, in funerals and also as a piece of furniture. The most common finishes are polishing, sanding, brushing and sandblasting.

Carrara marble is also the protagonist of the Italian culinary tradition: from this marble, basins are obtained which are used to prepare the famous Colonnata lard. Furthermore, the mortars for crushing basil and pine nuts are also made from this material, thus obtaining the Genoese pesto.

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