When I first arrived in Florence I was amazed by all of the marble architecture and statues in the city. I was impressed by the sheer size of the blocks that must have been used and how much time must have been spent shaping them. Now, after visiting a marble mine, I am even more blown away by the huge mining operation necessary to get that marble.
Pulling into the parking lot of the mine was all it took to start “oooo”s and “ahhhhh”s echoing through the bus. To me, the sheer size of the mine was nearly incomprehensible, even as I got out of the bus and the giant white faces of marble were towering over me. Once we had a bit of an introduction I learned that this was only one of three valleys that made up the mine, and that made it even crazier to fully process the scale of this mine. It was also very interesting, and a little terrifying, to learn how the methods of extracting the marble from the mountains have evolved and changed since the time of the Renaissance.
The knowledge that I gained, both on the scale and process of marble mining, greatly changed how I viewed the marble I already admired in the city. To think that just gathering the material to create these works of art was so dangerous, labor intensive, and large scale made me realize the huge feat they truly represented. What once amazed me now absolutely blew my mind.
Swanson School of Engineering 