Carrara marble, the stuff of Michelangelo’s David and a symbol of Italian luxury, has run into hard times amid the world financial crisis and growing competition from abroad.
“The finishing of marble and other materials such as granite is in a very deep crisis,” said Marco Tonelli, a city official in Carrara, the Tuscan home of the famous white and blue-gray stone.
“China, as well as India and Brazil, have invested in tools to work marble and granite, and now they are finishing it locally instead of sending it to Carrara as they used to,” said Roberto Dell’Amico, who owns a workshop in Carrara that his father opened 45 years ago.
PHOTO: AFP
“Twenty or 30 years ago, most marble or granite produced in the world was finished in Carrara, but today that is no longer the case,” said Dell’Amico, who employs 13 men, down from 18 a decade ago.
Exports last year of finished marble products and granite dropped 16 percent and 27 percent respectively from a year ago in terms of value, experts say, while unions say some 2,000 jobs have been lost in recent years.
Brazil, a major producer of granite, cuts its own blocks at much more competitive prices and exports them directly.
“We should export our know-how, because even if we will never be able to compete with the Chinese in simple cutting of marble, we can still rival them in finishing thanks to our artisans who often work the material by hand,” Dell’Amico said.
“There’s no school for learning this skill,” said Alvise Lazzareschi, 52, the descendant of a noble Tuscan family whose ancestors have extracted marble for five centuries.
“You learn it when you are little, when dad comes home and starts cursing a rock that cracked in the wrong place,” he said.
Lazzareschi also noted the dangers of marble-cutting, an all-male domain.
Few have not lost family members in the quarries, despite strengthened safety norms through the years.
“We can’t work if it’s too cold, or if it’s too hot, or if there’s too much rain or wind. We work between 160 and 170 days a year,” said Franco Petacchi, 50.
“I have 24 employees, all men. It’s a difficult skill and dangerous. You won’t find a woman in a quarry,” Petacchi said, pointing to a statue of his uncle, who died in a mining accident.
Petacchi’s grandfather was a quarry foreman, while his father had a concession, which he took over.
The town earns about 15 million euros (US$20 million) a year in taxes and concessions.
While demand for cutting and finishing is down, extraction continues apace at a rate of about 1 million tonnes of marble per year.
The supply appears limitless, leading Lazzareschi to remark with confidence: “The world will end before Carrara marble runs out.”
Antonio Chiappini, another expert, said that the activity had little waste.
“Marble is like a pig. You don’t throw anything away, from the noble product, to the earth which is used for backfill, to the debris used to make calcium carbonate,” used in the food and cosmetic industries, Chiappini said.
“I have no problems with the Chinese or others copying me,” said Alberto Devoti, who runs cutting and finishing operations. “I simply have to stay ahead of the game by always offering something new [so that] those who copy will always come in second.”
Despite the help of high-tech equipment — digitized machinery and high-pressure waterjet cutting machines — Devoti says it is the artisan who makes the difference.
“The top of this marble column required two weeks of work by hand, using a chisel and sandpaper, to obtain the desired result,” Devoti said, caressing the ornate piece.
Devoti’s two brothers and his son work also for the family business that has won lucrative contracts overseas, such as cladding a mosque in Oman with marble.
They have also come up with innovative products such as thin, undulating marble plaques decorated with copies of Dutch painter Piet Mondrian’s geometric creations.
However, with the financial crisis and competition biting into revenues, the sector “needs the help of the political world to promote products, fund research and spur banks to support small companies,” Devoti said.
Marble finishers “suffer from their small size and their isolation, and they have been unable to join forces,” Tonelli said.
“All in all, these companies have been unable to cope with the end of their near-monopoly on finishing marble and granite,” he said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)