The Road That Michaelangelo Built To Mine Marble

The marble road of the cervaiole quarry winds through monte altissimo photographed on july 14 2017.

The road that michaelangelo built to mine marble.

One of the many roads crossing the apuan alps it is imbued with a legacy that has shaped the character of all towns in alta versilia. 500 years have passed since michelangelo forged his marble road extending from seravezza to the heel of the trambiserra and cappella quarries. The same marble mines that michelangelo used see 514 traveler reviews 526 candid photos and great deals for carrara italy at tripadvisor. Michelangelo s david is massive at 17 feet tall and more than 12 000 pounds yet it is sculpted from a single block of white marble.

After finding the right stone michelangelo would have hired a crew of cavatori or quarrymen and scarpellini or stone carvers to cut blocks out of the mountain. A document from 1501 refers to a massive barely begun statue a certain man of marble named david badly blocked out and laid on its back in the courtyard the stone was a leftover from a long running decorative project. In 1408 the committee had decided to decorate the roofline around the dome of the cathedral with massive statues of. In the three centuries following michelangelo s time the altissimo quarries went through.

The family created the office of marble in 1564 to regulate the marble mining industry. Marble caves of carrara. The city of massa in particular saw much of its plan. Carrara marble has been used since the time of ancient rome and it was called the luni marble.

Until the late 19th century the process of extracting marble from the mountains had remained little changed since michelangelo s time. Michelangelo chose carrara marble for his acclaimed pietà statue kept in st peter s basilica in the vatican which depicts the body of christ on the lap of his mother mary after his crucifixion. At that time the marble was said to have had a flaw in it and the project was abandoned. With the blessing of pope leo x michelangelo designed a path that could get blocks of the white marble down from the mountain to be transported to florence to be used to decorate the facade of the.

Although the film footage below of work in the quarries of carrara shown here is contemporary it powerfully evokes the arduous physical work the dangers at hand and the large scale of the stones. In the 17th and 18th centuries the marble quarries were monitored by the cybo and malaspina families who ruled over massa and carrara.