Even in our country, which has an ancient and continuous relationship with natural stones, there are few marble museums. However, some realities actively tell and promote this extraordinary material’s history, art and craftsmanship. Let’s explore together museums telling marble’s history.

Civic Museum of Carrara Marble

Founded in 1982, the Museum collects and preserves numerous archaeological finds from the quarry, tools used for extracting and working marble from Roman times to the present day, as well as minerals, vintage original photographic material, and a marble library containing 310 large-format samples of the most important marbles produced in Italy – not only in Tuscany but also in Liguria, Piedmont and throughout the peninsula – and abroad until 1979.
The room dedicated to technical applications, created in 1968 on the occasion of the Third National Exhibition of Marble, is particularly noteworthy because it contains very rare prototypes of the first marble realizations made with industrial processes.

Quarry Museum Fantiscritti

Among the museums telling marble’s history, there is the Fantiscritti Quarry Museum. Located in the heart of the Carrara marble quarries, in the Quarry is retraced the experience and history of quarrymen and their work in ancient times, focusing on their social conditions. Among the collection’s highlights, is a reconstruction of a worker’s hut, a helical wire paving, a life-size marble oxen and some quarrymen’s tools.

Botticino Marble Museum

Inaugurated in late 1996, the Botticino Marble Museum offers an itinerary “From quarry to work. Two thousand years of history“, which not only highlights the historical artifacts and iconographic heritage but also focuses on the testimonies related to extracting, transporting and working Botticino marble.
The collection includes tools used between the 19th and 20th centuries, historical images and contemporary photographs, a section dedicated to the world of fossils and speleothems found in the quarry basin, and a lithotheque containing local, national and international marble samples.

CARMI Museum of Carrara and Michelangelo

And finally, here is the last one in our list of museums telling marble’s history. Located since 2018 in Villa Fabbricotti, the 19th-century building in Carrara’s Padula Park, CARMI is a museum dedicated entirely to the master Michelangelo Buonarroti and his relationship with Carrara city and his marble, the material that shaped his sculptural production.
Moreover, Padula Park was transformed into an art park of sculptural environment, with works by internationally renowned artists, including Dani Karavan, Sol Lewitt and Robert Morris, transforming the landscape into a dynamic space where art, environment and land blend.

Be sure to leave a comment if you enjoyed the article and let us know if you have ever been to one of these museums!