Apuan Alps Geopark

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Archaeomining area of historical Quarries of Bardiglio Cappella is located in Fabiano di Seravezza (Lucca).

The archaeomining area is laid out below the medieval church of San Martino alla Cappella, at the edge of the Apuan Alps Regional Park, in the Versilia hinterland, at about 400 mt above sea level.
It is easily reachable by car following the Marina's provincial road, through the village of Seravezza, then the Montagna's municipal road to Fabiano-Pieve della Cappella.
Fabiano is 17 km far from Massa, 22 far from Viareggio, 49 far from Castelnuovo Garf., 41 far from Lucca, 50 far from Pisa:

  • Tollgate Versilia A12 (E80) Genova-Rosignano: 13 km far

  • Rail Station FF.SS. Forte dei Marmi-Querceta: 8 km far

  • Airport Galileo Galilei, Pisa: 54 km far

  • Bus service: Vaibus


opening times

Open all year. The visit is free.


tourist information

Visitors Center of the Park
via Corrado Del Greco, 11
55047 Seravezza (Lucca)

tel. +039 0584 756144
fax +039 0584 756144

for more information:

go to archeominerario.it

 

Apuan itineraries

Historical Quarries of Bardiglio Cappella


It’s still uncertain when the early stages of the quarrying industry in the quarries of the Mount of Cappella were begun. They could have been started in the Roman Age or after the year 1000, which is actually more probable.
On the contrary, it’s for sure that, in the XII-XIII c., the local white marbles as well as the ones called ‘bardigli’ (whose deep grey pale-blue colour is unique) were used to build, in opus quadratum, the wall face of the parish church of S. Martino an its bell tower. Moreover, some indirect and fragmentary news testify that excavation in the Mount of the Cappella were made in the XV c., when the stone production was largely affected by a bad road-link with the valley bottom and the coast-valley.
On May, 18
th , 1515,  the Men of the Communities of Seravezza and Cappella donated, “pro marmoribus cavandis”, some of their appurtenances to the Florentine Republic and People. In the acts the local marble quarries “Montes Capellae, Finunculariae et Costae” are mentioned.


 

In 1518, Michelangelo Buonarroti built the carriage way  at the bottom of the valley. The way, which goes from Seravezza to the base of the basins of Trambiserra and Cappella, fostered the following growth of the local quarrying industry.
The grand duke Cosimo I de’ Medici (1567) gave some more boasts to the exploitation of the quarries of the Valley of the river Serra. He actually saw to it that the “Via dei Marmi” could reach the Mount Altissimo and dispatched many sculptors and architects (Vasari, Ammannati, Giambologna, Danti, Moschino, Fancelli, etc…) to get marble from the quarries of Solaio, Ceràgiola, Cappella, Trambiserra, Altissimo and the Mount of Stazzema.
In the XVII c., the quarries of the Cappella kept on providing white marbles and the “bardigli”.
These were mostly used in the building of the Opera of S. Maria in Fiore in Florence. A document dated 1687 testifies the first production of squared marble floor tiles (commonly known as “marmette”, “quadrette” or “ambrogette”). Such tiles have characterized the quarrying industry in the quarries of the Cappella for almost three centuries. Not by chance, the inhabitants of the village nearby, Fabiano, were commonly known as “piastrellai”, as they were mainly occupied in making tiles.
In the XVIII c., the local marble quarries of the Cappella have been intensively exploited to make “opere di quadro” such as columns, door jambs, slabs and squared marble floor tiles.

In 1768, there were 21 quarries; in 1850, their number raised up to 27, with about 114 stonecutters employed.
Up to the first half of the XIX c., the quarries of the Cappella were concentrated in the lower part of the homonymous Mount, along the outcrop, now exhausted, of the white marbles.
During the last decades of the XX c., the excavation activity was led also in the highest part of the side of the mountain, which is almost close to the parish church of S. Martino and the village of Fabiano.
For a big part of the XX c., the so-called “Vie di lizza” and the cableway kept on being used to take the extracted blocks down to valley, on the left side of the river Serra, where the so-called “poggi caricatori” (places where the blocks were loaded on the “lizze”) were.
In the sixties of the same century, the path that gives access to the quarries and the transport by tyre had been just introduced when, soon after, the excavation industry in the marble quarries of the Cappella was ceased. However, traces of such an activity are still enjoyable as well as a unique suggestive mining landscape.
 


Visit to archaeomining area
 

The beauty of the quarries of the Cappella is nowadays exalted by the view you can enjoy overlooking from the orographic terrace which extends from the coast valley of Versilia to the main ridge of the mountain chain of the Apuan Alps: from Forte dei Marmi to the Mount Altissimo.
A short almost flat route let the visitors observe some aspects of the mining industry in the Mount of Cappella as it was when it was flourishing during the XIX-XX c. Along the mule-track, which links the parish church of S. Martino to the valley bottom of Riomagno and Seravezza, are two stately ramparts to contain the excavation drifts. The date engraved on a big stone splinter, 1878, probably marks the period in which these huge dry-stone walls have been built.
The route, blue tinted on the map, is close to some ancient assay quarries whose dumps (“ravaneti”) are nowadays in course of renaturalization.
On the highest part of the Mount of Cappella, the quarries show traces of rudimentary but still in use excavations techniques. The family and/or “craft” business fostered the production of small blocks and, in particular, of “bardiglio” semifinished products to be used in both civil and religious architecture.

The Cappella-Fabiano-Riomagno road in the map of 1784
A.S.C.S., Campione di strade
 

The map of archaeomining area of the Cappella

The so-obtained and on-the-quarry-yard-already-squared products were then taken downhill by means of big sleighs (lizze) made of beech-wood. The “lizze” were slowly led along steep and paved paths or freighted by mighty cableways. The map marks the spots where to find traces of such ancient means of transport.
Frequent are the holes where the “piri” were put into. The “piri” were a sort of “pioli” (pegs) where the cables, used to control the descent of the blocks along the “vie di lizza”, were wound round.


"Il Monte delle Cave della Cappella
è assai alto, e da esso si scuopre gran tratto di mare: dietro a lui resta [il] Monte Altissimo, ignudo, e bianco come se fosse coperto di Neve (…). Dirimpetto al Monte delle Cave, si vede il precipitoso sporto di Monte detto Trambiserra, che ha filoni di Marmo simili in tutto e per tutto a quelli del Monte della Cappella, anziché da esso si cava medesimamente il Bardiglio, ed il Marmo bianco, laonde fa chiaramente conoscere, che anticamente era unito, e continuato con quello della Cappella, ma poi è stato diviso e tagliato dall’acque del
Rimagno”. (1)
 

"Gli Scarpellini spaccano i massi a forza di cunei, o biette (…). Lavorano a cava aperta, non a grotte (…), e dove a più uno piace; laonde sciattano moltissimo Marmo. I pezzi cavati e sbozzati, stante la ripidezza del Monte, gli fanno sdrucciolare al basso, sopra di lunghissimi scarichi di scappiole, e rottami di Marmo: in basso gli caricano sopr’a Carri, e gli portano a Rimagno a lavorare e pulire; poiché li sono molte Botteghe e Magazzini di Marmi, e vi si fanno moltissimi lavori. Per segarli e spianarli, siccome nel paese non hanno rena buona, si servono di certa rena bianca, che cavano dal Lago di Maciuccoli, e da S. Terenzio vicino alla Spezia (…)”.(2)

Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti,
Relazioni d’alcuni viaggi fatti in diverse parti della Toscana
II ediz., Cambiagi, Firenze 1773,
(1) vol. VI, pp. 222-223.
(2) vol. Vi, pp. 218-219.
 

On its right side, the route offers the opportunity to enjoy the first museum-quarry (Quarry A in the map of archaeomining area of the Mount of Cappella).
The excavation assay was obtained forcing the natural fractures of the stone by means of iron wedges or explosives. On the left, are still evident traces of the pulling-down of shapeless blocks along the “verso” cleavage plain, following the immersion of the main schistosity system of the marble mass.
The front of the quarry was then taken some metres deeper into the mount. This was possible by exploiting the two lateral and convergent fractures of the “secondo” cleavage plain.
At the bottom of the quarry, the removal of the blocks has left some subvertical surfaces that correspond to the “contro” cleavage plain.
Many blocks were left on the quarry yard. They had already been squared by the stonecutters and should have been put on a “carica” (load) to be loaded on a “lizza” and be taken downhill.

on the right
The “verso” cleavage plain (dip to sud-west) of the Quarry A

under
The cleavage plains of the Quarry A

 
Poco più oltre siamo a vista delle cave della Cappella, il ravaneto delle quali ti abbaglia l’occhio, poiché altro ivi non miri che il biancheggiar del marmo tra l’azzurro del cielo e il verde dei vicini castagneti. Qui è tutto movimento di picconi, mazze, pali, seghe, mine che esplodono, grida dei cavatori e dei bifolchi che caricano i massi enormi che rotolano traendo seco dall’alto del monte nell’alveo del fiume dei minori e che talvolta dagli urti l’uno l’altro si spezzano: altri ne vedi sospesi sopra il tuo capo quasi fosser per lasciarsi all’istante; e chi per la prima volta ammira queste escavazioni rimane invero meravigliato ed atterrito. Varie sono le proprietà di questo monte, ma ognuno vi cava a suo bell’agio gli ordinari ed i bardigli, essendo questi ultimi dei più belli che si conoscano e del vero colore piccione, come li appellano gli inglesi colour’s dove (sic). I più pratici uomini sono occupati nelle formelle così dette, per istaccare i massi dal monte, servendosi di mazze e zeppole; altri nel far le mine, ed usano certo paletto detto ago da mine. Taluni vi quadrano massi secondo le forme volute dal committente e li pongono in istato da sottoporli alla sega. I ragazzi sono per lo più destinati a far le quadrette da pavimento, e le donne a trasportarle in capo dalle cave fino al caricatoio”.

Vincenzo Santini, Vicende storiche di Seravezza e Stazzema, ms. del 1874, pubbl. Pietrasanta, 1964, p. 278-279
 

On its left side, the route offers the opportunity to enjoy the second museum-quarry (Quarry B in the map of archeomining area of the Mount of Cappella). In the second small quarry, the progression of the excavations was made possible by means of explosives. That’s the reason why, in the spot, there aren’t any signs of connection with the natural clivage plains. Blocks squared by means of “mazzetta” and subbia” (piton hammer and chisel) as well as many scales derived by the percussion activity are visible on the yard of this second quarry too.
Particularly interesting it is the presence of a handmade product endowed with steps and a column plinth testifying the advanced level of the semimanifacture of the excavated blocks.

The yard of the Quarry B

In both the quarries, the ‘bardiglio Cappella’ crops out. It is a marble of a deep grey pale-blue colour striped at the bottom with light blue lines that slightly shade off in white.
The word “bardiglio” derives from the Spanish one
pardillo, diminutive for pardo, that is ‘grey’. The colour is due to the diffusion of microcrystalline pyrite. Whenever fractured, the “bardiglio” gives a peculiar sulphur odour off.
 

‘Bardiglio Cappella’ typus

 

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