Marmi colorati. Le pietre e l’architettura dall’Antico al Barocco

Coloured marbles are precious stones set in architectural jewels…”

This book aims to follow a track the historical chronology of the use of the stone material in Italian architecture from the Roman period to the Baroque. One cannot begin a historical journey about marble without starting with ancient Rome. This civilisation is identified with this stone material and is recounted through the thousands of sculptures that we see today intact with their political, religious and artistic significance: just think of the Trajan’s Column with its long, low relief frieze narrating, like a comic strip, the Emperor’s noble achievements and his conquest of Dacia and Phrygia. It is precisely thanks to the conquests of the more distant provinces that the Empire began to plumb the depths of the earth and the mountain peaks to quarry the most beautiful marbles, choosing with aesthetic taste from amongst the thousands of colours and shades. This aesthetic sensitivity, which originated in Rome, remains unsurpassed to this day and has had a great influence worldwide. Emperor Augustus boasted that he found Rome built of brick and delivered it to posterity full of brightly coloured marbles.

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