Tag: artisans

If you have been to Volterra before, you surely know alabaster: a particular kind of stone, lightly colored and translucent, used to sculpture small and not-too-small artifacts. The streets and narrow alleys around Volterra are full of shops and workshops in which tourists can admire and buy almost every kind of alabaster-thing: from little ornamental eggs to giant statues. In this post we wanted to collect for you some facts and curiosities about Volterra and its alabaster, one of the finest craftsmanship in Tuscany. Did you know that the alabaster of Volterra and the Oriental alabaster are not the same thing? Yes, because “alabaster” is a word used in a generic way by the archeologists, while with this same word geologists indicate two different kinds of minerals: a type of calcite and a type of gypsum. The first one is typical of ancient Oriental and Middle-East cultures and nowadays is the mineral most used to make any kind of artifacts. Whereas gypsum, a mineral quite commonly used in Medieval Europe, today is extracted and used in Spain (Aragon), in Wales and in Italy (Volterra). The gypsum alabaster is a soft, lightly colored translucent stone. In Volterra, you can find several varieties in different colors and patterns. Did you know Volterra alabaster is used since Etruscan times? In Volterra, the alabaster has been known and prized since Etruscan times, in the 3rd century BC, when it was used primarily to carve funeral urns. Since we have no trace of alabaster craftsmanship from Medieval Times, historians believe that after a period of abandonment of this craftmanship it was reintroduced in the 16th century. Anyhow, the true Golden Age of alabaster in Volterra was in the late ‘800 when a new processing technology was introduced leading to the mass-production of Expressionism and Art