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ITALIAN MARBLE: HISTORY MAKES THE DIFFERENCE
Rome - (IGN) - It is probably the oldest production sector, with roots that go deep into the distant past. It is the Italian marble extraction and working industry (www.marmomacc.com, www.assomarmomacchine.com). It is a sector that has grown continuously over the years to the extent that it is now an extremely important element of the Italian industrial landscape, with over 10 thousand direct, and a similar number of induced, employees, annual turnover of 2 billion Euro, plus almost another 2 billion in revenue for the induced businesses and realized in foreign markets with a variable share from 20 to 80%, depending on the type of product. A network consisting of over 2 thousand businesses of every size, spread everywhere that there is raw material available, from Tuscany to the Veneto and from the Trentino to Sardinia. With one common denominator: quality. In fact, Italian marbles are universally recognized for their unique characteristics: the Bianco Statuario of Carrara that Michelangelo used for his masterpieces or the Broccato Rosso of Verona, that has embellished hundreds of monuments throughout Europe, the Granito Rosa of the Gallura on which New York's Statue of Liberty rests, or the Perlato of Coreno Ausonio, whose polish jumps out in the altar of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome.
There are seven principal industrial districts in which most of the Italian marble industry is concentrated. The most important in terms of size is certainly that of the Valpolicella, in the province of Verona. It consists of over 500 companies dedicated to the extraction and working of several Italian marbles that are among the most appreciated in the world for the countless colour tones they offer: from the classic red that has embellished the Verona Arena for twenty centuries, to the black of Rovere, to the yellows and pinks of the Lessinia. These are materials that are mostly destined for decoration or thin wall-coverings, for total annual sales of over 2 billion Euro, with 20% earned on foreign markets.
But if the Verona district is the largest, the most famous is certainly the Tuscan region of the Apuan Alps (in the photograph, a Carrara quarry): two hundred quarries, employing over 1,000 persons to extract white Carrara marble, another 5 thousand employed at companies that work the marble, for a total turnover of over 1,200 million Euro a year, with more than 50% exported to foreign markets from the Far East to the United States, Germany and Oceania. Having Michelangelo Buonarroti as a "celebrity spokesperson" is certainly a competitive advantage but there is no doubt about the fact that the quality of these raw materials is extraordinary from every point of view beginning from its workability through to its perennial polish, to that extent that over the centuries the outstanding Apuan quarries have become the center of an actual marble-working school and an extensive network of businesses, by now the absolute world leaders, dedicated to the construction of machinery for its extraction and working.
Other important production districts in the sector are those of Liguria, specializing in the production and working of black slate, where more than 150 companies achieve annual turnover that brush up against 100 million Euro, with more than half exported to foreign markets, and the area of the Val di Cembra, in Trentino, where almost 500 companies, with over 3,000 employees and sales of 150 million Euro per year, are dedicated to the extraction and working of porphyry, 40% of which is exported, consisting of over a million tons of cubes and slabs for pavements and building exteriors. Another important industrial reality is that of the Ausoni Mountains, south of Rome, which produces ornamental marble famous throughout the world, to the extent that 80% of its production, with a total value of about 60 million Euro per year, is destined for export. Finally, there are the two granite districts of Sardinia, the Gallura (one thousand employees and 100 million Euro in sales) and Orosei (200 employees and 30 million Euro in sales).
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