Black portoro marble
Portoro quarry video footage
Video footage inside a black portoro marble quarry in the province of La Spezia by Be marmi of Carrara (Tuscany – Italy), a company that works portoro marble – for contacts, call Antonio Bernardini now at: (+39)339 7336685
- Background music of the video: Lotus Pond by Aakash Gandhi
- Find the song in the Youtube audio collection
Black portoro marble features
Portoro is an intense and brilliant black marble, with white and golden veins, extracted only in the Province of La Spezia (Liguria – Italy), especially in the Portovenere area. Portoro marble is a fine variety of Italian marble, one of the most beautiful of the so-called polychrome marbles.
This peculiarity makes it a unique marble, irreplaceable as an ornamental material.
Portoro is a real natural work of art . A very precious marble, with a characteristic gold color and embellished with delicate golden veins.
Such marble immediately brings luxury to mind , which is why it is used in very fine and refined environments, such as five-star and ultra-luxury hotels, luxury villas, residences and prestigious shopping centres.
An example is the Capitolare Tower in Portovenere (in Italy). In the photo above, we can appreciate a black portoro marble table inside the famous Tower (hover over the photo to enlarge it).
- Due to its extreme fragility, portoro marble requires a very delicate and laborious extraction technique, which can take up to three weeks of hard work to obtain a bank (a gigantic portion of rock).
This is why black portoro marble is so precious and has a very high price.
Types of black portoro marble
There are four different qualities:
- fine spot;
- of medium quality, which has golden veins mixed with white spots;
- top quality, which stands out from the others for its golden veins distributed over the entire surface;
- finally, of extra quality. A very rare quality.
Extra Nero Portoro marble slab present in the BE Marmi warehouse in Carrara (Tuscany)
Therefore, its preciousness is precisely due to the limited availability that distinguishes it, as it can be found – as already written above – only in the Portovenere area in Liguria.
Historical notes on black portoro marble
It is not known precisely when the extraction and use of black portoro marble began, but in the nearby and ancient Roman city of Luni (located between the provinces of La Spezia and Massa Carrara), architectural works containing slabs and other small parts made of portoro marble.
- In Roman times Portoro marble was widely used in the imperial villas and was probably also used in the construction of the Roman temple which stood at the end of the promontory of Porto Venere and above which the church of San Pietro was later built.
In the 12th century the Genoese used portoro marble for the construction of supporting columns and facades. In 1500 Cosimo of Medici increased the use of portoro and in 1600 Giò Batta Morello had a contract with the Olivetan monks of Portovenere, for the exploitation of the Palmaria quarries with a payment of 13 Genoese money for each “cartload” extracted.
Later the monks tried to cancel the contract for the little profit they received, but found great difficulty in doing so.
In Rome it was used for the interiors of various churches such as San Pietro in Vincoli, San Silvestro in Capite, San Paolo outside the walls, San Giovanni in Laterano, San Lorenzo outside the walls.
Portoro marble to conquer the world
At the beginning of the 19th century, the use of black portoro marble began to spread outside Liguria as well, particularly in France, Belgium and Switzerland to embellish palaces and castles such as those of Versailles, Marly and Compiegne.
- Later it was also exported to the United States where, for example, the large Paramount projection room was completely covered with the so-called “Black and Gold Marble”.
Finally, it is said among the grandparents from La Spezia (from La Spezia) that they all had a double bedroom furnished with bedside tables and a chest of drawers with a portoro marble slab on top! The famous glossy black marble with those streaks of golden yellow and intense white.
The article originated from multiple news sources:
- The Marmomac Verona website
- Wikipedia/portoro
- Stories of elderly people living between Sarzana and La Spezia.
PS: the author of the article himself has, in his bedroom, an old chest of drawers with a beautiful slab of black portoro marble on it.
Nero Portoro marble – Who are we
Video footage inside a black portoro marble quarry active in the province of La Spezia (Liguria), by Be Marmi of Carrara (Tuscany – Italy), a company that works black portoro marble.
For contacts, call Antonio Bernardini now at: (+39) 339/733.66.85. Or use the following contacts: Carrara sales office:
- (+39) 0585 872054
- Email: info@bemarmi.com