THE MARBLE QUARRIES OF CARRARA

Not only are the Apuan Alps a region of unique and incomparable beauty – they also contain immense deposits of marble. The most famed and prized of these marbles are to be found in three principal gullies or canali: Torano, Miseglia, and Colonnata.
Experts estimate the total excavable marble field of Carrara to have a surface area of 67 km2 and a volume of 60,000 million cubic metres.
Excavation, transportation, and processing: these are the three key phases in marble production, the techniques of which have undergone a slow yet incessant evolution that reaches back over two thousand years. Few other sectors of industry can boast a similar pedigree, and in few other fields of human activity has progress been purchased at so high a price as in quarrying.
In this section we provide a brief account of the milestones along the two-thousand-year road in the development of the marble quarrying industry.