Carrara marble | Nikolai Shmatko | |||
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The Carrara marble is a generalized name of marbles, extracted from stone quarries near the city of Carrara, Toscana, Italy. The producing fields of this kind of marble are located in Apuan Apennines (called Alpi Apuane), that are a mountain ridge of 60 km long and 20-25 km wide. Four main valleys and several side branches lead from Carrara to numerous marble quarries. Snow-white marbles of the Triassic age occur throughout the slope up to the very ridge. There are deposits of white crystal and granular marble near Carrara, which are the most important in the world both by quality and reserves. The Carrara quarries were exploited in the Ancient Rome. Then they had been forgotten for a long time, but in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance the development of these deposits was resumed. The marble deposits here seem to be inexhaustible. The deposits of Carrara have several kinds of marble, but the clean white marble predominates, called Bianco in Italy, but more famous by its French name Blanc clair. The basic tone of the Carrara marble is milky white, sometimes with light blue tints. The clean white kinds of marble are highly appreciated by sculptors all over the world. The most magnificent works of sculpture are made of the white Carrara marble. |
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