MICHELANGELO’S MARBLES
Keen to try carving out a masterpiece of her own, Louise Roddon takes chisel in hand and ventures to the great Renaissance artist’s favourite quarries
IN the Nicoli Sculpture workshop, imperious marble busts share workbench space with simpering putti, solemn madonnas, and a giant head of Michelangelo’s David.
As if this was some surreal beauty parlour, each work receives the tender ministrations of goggled craftsmen, who smooth, plane and polish them against the background thrum of mechanical grinders. As I nervously await my turn with the chisel, a miasma of fine, white dust mottles the air.
I’ve come to the Tuscan city of Carrara to follow in the footsteps of Michelangelo. Not for me the usual tourist itinerary of church gawping and crowded art galleries.
On a new, two-day break that combines this brief sculpture class among powder-tinged statues with a visit to the region’s famous quarries, I’ll be experiencing the essence, the distillation if you like, of the world’s most memorable marble creations.
But first, a chat with Francesca, direct descendant of the workshop’s 19th-century founder. Carrara once boasted more than 100 similar establishments — the marble equivalent of bronze foundries — but nowadays only Nicoli’s is still in operation.
“I blame democracy!” says Francesca, laughing. “No more Saddam Husseins wanting huge likenesses. No more Gaddafis or Napoleons. We’ve survived thanks to the likes of Louise Bourgeois, Henry Moore and Anish Kapoor — all of whom stayed here.”
She hands me over to ponytailed Raphael, a craftsman, though I’m forbidden to work with a hunk of marble: “Are you mad? Do you want to ruin your hands?” asks Francesca, offering instead a small piece of alabaster.
For the next hour, under Raphael’s kind tutelage, I attempt to sculpt a cat, and my tools include a mechanical gouger that vibrates so violently in my hand that I’m trembling for the rest of the class. Sculpting is harder than I’d imagined and, shamefully, my creation loses an ear and its tail.
But no matter. I’m about to swap marble dust for the mellow towns of Pietrasanta, which has a rose window on the front of its duomo that was carved from a single block of marble, and Seravezza.
Seravezza is where Michelangelo lived during one of his quests to uncover new seams of perfect white stone. It’s a funny little place, with a tiny piazza darkened by the mist-swathed Apuan Alps that encircle this stretch of Tuscany.
Even in searing summer temperatures, these mountains cast a bizarre snowy-looking face on the surrounding towns, their sides scarred white from the workings of dozens of quarries that have been mined for more than 2 000 years. From these same quarries, blocks of marble were rolled away on iron balls and sent to Rome to become Trajan’s Column.
Later, at Henraux quarry, some 1 200 metres above sea level, I meet Pierotti Franco — a cheery Carrarese with a voice like clinking chisels. Ribbons of mist blur the vertiginous drops, obscuring, I am told, fabulous views over Cinque Terre in one direction and Corsica in the other, while underfoot, gloopy white mud sucks at the soles of my boots. While Pierotti talks, forklift trucks shift mammoth hunks of marble into neat piles.
Pierotti tells me how Michelangelo designed a road to link these quarries to the port at Forte dei Marmi, the ritzy seaside town where I am based. On that occasion, the artist was living alongside his quarry workers, and I am shown a facsimile of a letter describing his mountain hut, its margins peppered with charming drawings of their shared food: a little fish, a neat bread roll, wine and sausage.
Though based higher than Michelangelo’s favoured quarry from that period, Henraux boasts an equally fascinating past, spanning a commission to meet Napoleon’s egomaniacal order for 14 000 marble busts and personal visits from Henry Moore and Jean
I blame democracy! No more Saddams wanting huge likenesses
Arp. Today, trucks rather than oxen carry the marble down to port — vast weights that have helped form Abu Dhabi’s Grand Mosque, countless US office facades and the Emirates Towers in Dubai.
There is one question I’m burning to ask: with demand as strong as this, will the marble ever run out?
Pierotti looks rueful. “One day, perhaps. But,” he casts his arms wide, “these quarries are huge. We have to live in hope.”—