CARRARA
WHAT TO SEE IN CARRARA
An amphitheater in white and rough stone carved into the mountain from which houses, squares, ancient palaces and centuries-old monuments take shape at its feet. This is the image that opens when you arrive in Carrara, the city of marble, surrounded by the Apuan Alps and with your gaze turned to the sea. A small white jewel, nestled between Versilia and Liguria, in Lunigiana, to be discovered among the streets of the historic center, ancient villages in the surroundings and excursions through the lunar landscapes of the quarries. Here everything is linked to the presence of marble, the white gold of this land: the history, the traditions, the life of the inhabitants, even the gastronomic specialties.
Carrara's link with marble dates back to Roman times. It is no coincidence that its name derives from cart, a means used to transport the requested blocks and its symbol is the wheel (of the wagons, in fact). In fact, from these quarries - the largest marble basin in the world - comes the stone used to make the major public buildings and the numerous patrician residences of imperial Rome. It is then found in the splendid religious architecture in the Gothic style up to the Renaissance, when sculpture becomes the protagonist and some of the greatest works of masters such as Michelangelo, Bernini or Canova are born. It is still used today by artists from all over the world such as Poncet, Cardenas, Botero, Bodini, Pistoletto, up to the Japanese Yasuda and Nakamura. An internationally recognized reputation that earned it the title of UNESCO Creative City in the craft category in 2017. But every year the marble is celebrated with different manifestations. Like White Carrara Downtown, organized by IMM Carrara SpA which every June, for a week, offers an unusual tour of the city, with visits and cultural meetings, exhibitions, tastings and evocative concerts in the white landscape of the quarries. A praise to this wealth that has given so much to the world of art, but which is, also and above all, a story of men, of the hard work of the quarrymen, of their millenary knowledge for which they are, still today, renowned in Worldwide.
Turning around the historic center, partly closed to traffic, you will come across the most important buildings. It starts from Piazza Alberica, the heart of Carrara, with the pavement decorated with different types of marble that contrast with the colorful facades of the stately homes and dominated, in the center, by the fountain with the statue depicting the Duchess Maria Beatrice d’Este. From here we meet the Cathedral of Sant'Andrea, in which the first Romanesque structure was embellished with Gothic interventions, and characterized by a façade with bands of white Lunense and black Colonnata marble on which opens a rose window that recalls the shape of a wheel, symbol of the city; the Teatro degli Animosi, in neoclassical style with the facade entirely made of white marble; and, again, the fountain in Piazza d’Armi, Floating Stone, created by the artist Kenneth Davis in 1979 with a sphere of 108 cm in diameter (and 1,781 tons of weight) that rotates constantly under the force of the water. Not far from the center, inside Villa Fabbricotti immersed in the greenery of the Padula Park, there is also the CARMI - Carrara and Michelangelo Museum, dedicated to the undisputed icon of Renaissance art and its close relationship with the city . Created by the MetaMorfosi Association, with the scientific collaboration of Casa Buonarroti, the path winds through six thematic rooms which, through 1: 1 scale reproductions, holograms, such as that of David coming to life in a room, videos, photographs and documents historians, retraces Michelangelo's deep bond with the city and marble, his material of choice, which brought him here back in 1497.
Carrara marble: the origins of a work of art
Also in the center of Carrara, there is the Academy of Fine Arts, housed in Palazzo Cybo-Malaspina, renowned for the training, among other disciplines, of future sculptors. Opened 250 years ago, today it welcomes around 800 students, half of whom foreigners, and boasts honorary professors of the caliber of Flaxman, Canova up to Maurizio Cattelan and Jeff Koons, appointed in the last two years by the Director Luciano Massari. In this former Renaissance-style stronghold, belonging to the princely family that reigned in the Duchy of Massa and Carrara from 1553 to 1790, you can admire the splendor of its ancient past. Like the hall of the columns, now used as an Institute Library, the private apartments of the prince which preserves valuable editions and historical archives, the hall of the nobles, which houses the first and most complete existing national marble gallery that exhibits the different types of marble from the Peninsula, including the local white one, and, last but not least, one of the most important plaster casts in the world for variety and quantity, which has over 300 plaster casts by famous artists such as Canova, Tenerani, Finelli, Fontana. In the medieval loggia, finally, it is poss
Carrara's link with marble dates back to Roman times. It is no coincidence that its name derives from cart, a means used to transport the requested blocks and its symbol is the wheel (of the wagons, in fact). In fact, from these quarries - the largest marble basin in the world - comes the stone used to make the major public buildings and the numerous patrician residences of imperial Rome. It is then found in the splendid religious architecture in the Gothic style up to the Renaissance, when sculpture becomes the protagonist and some of the greatest works of masters such as Michelangelo, Bernini or Canova are born. It is still used today by artists from all over the world such as Poncet, Cardenas, Botero, Bodini, Pistoletto, up to the Japanese Yasuda and Nakamura. An internationally recognized reputation that earned it the title of UNESCO Creative City in the craft category in 2017. But every year the marble is celebrated with different manifestations. Like White Carrara Downtown, organized by IMM Carrara SpA which every June, for a week, offers an unusual tour of the city, with visits and cultural meetings, exhibitions, tastings and evocative concerts in the white landscape of the quarries. A praise to this wealth that has given so much to the world of art, but which is, also and above all, a story of men, of the hard work of the quarrymen, of their millenary knowledge for which they are, still today, renowned in Worldwide.
Turning around the historic center, partly closed to traffic, you will come across the most important buildings. It starts from Piazza Alberica, the heart of Carrara, with the pavement decorated with different types of marble that contrast with the colorful facades of the stately homes and dominated, in the center, by the fountain with the statue depicting the Duchess Maria Beatrice d’Este. From here we meet the Cathedral of Sant'Andrea, in which the first Romanesque structure was embellished with Gothic interventions, and characterized by a façade with bands of white Lunense and black Colonnata marble on which opens a rose window that recalls the shape of a wheel, symbol of the city; the Teatro degli Animosi, in neoclassical style with the facade entirely made of white marble; and, again, the fountain in Piazza d’Armi, Floating Stone, created by the artist Kenneth Davis in 1979 with a sphere of 108 cm in diameter (and 1,781 tons of weight) that rotates constantly under the force of the water. Not far from the center, inside Villa Fabbricotti immersed in the greenery of the Padula Park, there is also the CARMI - Carrara and Michelangelo Museum, dedicated to the undisputed icon of Renaissance art and its close relationship with the city . Created by the MetaMorfosi Association, with the scientific collaboration of Casa Buonarroti, the path winds through six thematic rooms which, through 1: 1 scale reproductions, holograms, such as that of David coming to life in a room, videos, photographs and documents historians, retraces Michelangelo's deep bond with the city and marble, his material of choice, which brought him here back in 1497.
Carrara marble: the origins of a work of art
Also in the center of Carrara, there is the Academy of Fine Arts, housed in Palazzo Cybo-Malaspina, renowned for the training, among other disciplines, of future sculptors. Opened 250 years ago, today it welcomes around 800 students, half of whom foreigners, and boasts honorary professors of the caliber of Flaxman, Canova up to Maurizio Cattelan and Jeff Koons, appointed in the last two years by the Director Luciano Massari. In this former Renaissance-style stronghold, belonging to the princely family that reigned in the Duchy of Massa and Carrara from 1553 to 1790, you can admire the splendor of its ancient past. Like the hall of the columns, now used as an Institute Library, the private apartments of the prince which preserves valuable editions and historical archives, the hall of the nobles, which houses the first and most complete existing national marble gallery that exhibits the different types of marble from the Peninsula, including the local white one, and, last but not least, one of the most important plaster casts in the world for variety and quantity, which has over 300 plaster casts by famous artists such as Canova, Tenerani, Finelli, Fontana. In the medieval loggia, finally, it is poss
