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 It was, the Renaissance master wrote, "of
compact grain, homogeneous, crystalline, reminiscent of sugar".
He deemed it perhaps even more precious than that from nearby
Carrara, where he had obtained marble for some of his most
famous statues.
With the blessing of Pope Leo X, Michelangelo designed a path
that could get blocks of the white marble down from the mountain
to be transported to Florence to be used to decorate the facade
of the church of San Lorenzo.
In exchange for getting a quarry operation going, Florentine
authorities granted Michelangelo the right to take as much
marble as he wanted from Altissimo - which in Italian means both
"most high" and "God" - for his use for the rest of his life.
"There is enough here to extract until Judgment Day," he wrote
to a contemporary.
But it was never to be.
After several years of work to carve out a road, Pope Leo, who
was of Florence's Medici family, relieved Michelangelo of his
commission and the project was abandoned. The church of San
Lorenzo still has no facade.
Today, the quarries of 1,589-metre-high (5,213-feet) Altissimo,
in Italy's Apuan Alps, buzz with the kind of activity that even
a genius like Michelangelo probably could not have foreseen.
Click here for a photo essay - http://reut.rs/2uTXsZs.
Modern cutting and extraction techniques have produced a surreal
landscape similar to some Cubism paintings, a dizzying array of
upside down staircases and sugar-cube structures looking
heavenward.
"The primitive technology consisted of human labor and beasts of
burden," said Franco Pierotti, director of extractions.
"The primordial instruments such as levers, chisels and hammers
later evolved with the introduction of helical wires in the 19th
century and now we have diamond-tipped wires and saws and heavy
earth-moving equipment," he said.
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Before the extracting begins, experts known as "tecchiaroli" hang on
ropes from the sides of the mountain and pick at its sides with
pointy iron bars to remove loose rock that could fall and hurt
workers in subsequent phases of the extraction.
In the three centuries following Michelangelo's time, the Altissimo
quarries went through cycles of abandonment and re-discovery.
In 1821, Marco Borrini, a local landowner, teamed up with Frenchman
Jean Baptiste Alexandre Henraux to start a new company and it has
been active in the area ever since.
The venture brought new life to the economically depressed area,
employing hundreds of quarrymen, squarers, sled men, stone cutters
and cart drivers, who guided oxen trains.
In the 19th century, the tsars of Russia chose Altissimo marble for
the construction of St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg and more
recently, it was used in the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi,
which opened in 2007.
Today, the Henraux company owns the entire mountain, employs about
140 people and extracts marble from five active quarries.
Over the years artists such as Auguste Rodin, Henry Moore, Joan Miro
and Isamu Noguchi have used Altissimo marble for their sculptures.
Michelangelo would be proud.
(Writing by Philip Pullella; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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