Crete Senesi
SERRE DI RAPOLANO: THE TRAVERTINO STONE
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The zone of Rapolano is renowned on an international level also and perhaps above all thanks to its prolific travertine quarries. This is a kind of marble frequently identifiable in many architectural presences in the zone, as for example on staircases or on the façades of churches and noble palaces.
Travertine is limestone that is formed due to a chemical reaction following the encrustation of particularly calcareous waters in the vicinity of natural springs or basins. Its porosity and its meagre stratification 39 (bedding) endow it with a high mechanical resistance which makes it able to resist the action of atmospheric agents for a long time and make it perfect for the realisation of pavings and coverings, even if they are submitted to a consistent risk of wear. These are endowments that make it a material that is not easy to work with or model: the many sculptors who have tried to take it on even in very recent years and who have enriched the urban centres of the territory around Siena, among which Rapolano, with numerous installations, are good authorities on the subject.
It is a type of marble that was already well-known and willingly used during the Etruscan era and then by the Romans, to whom the very origin of the word, derived from "lapis Tiburtinus", is owed. In witness of this ancient exploitation of the quarries of travertine remain the 7th century B.C. tumulus (mound) of the Molinello, the underground complex or necropolises of Poggio Pinci of the 5th century B. C. (in which about 10 Etruscan tombs have been found, in addition to numerous objects currently conserved in the Etruscan Museum at nearby Asciano), or even the large chamber tomb of Poggione. The use and then the working of the marbles were to increase during the following centuries, particularly between the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C., to which many cinerary urns- found during the course of some archaeological excavation campaigns- date back in particular.
However, the first testimonial to attest to the practice of excavating travertine in the area of Rapolano dates back only to 1597, and was relative to the quarry of Noceto, in the vicinity of Serre, fi-om which came the blocks which made possible - among other things - the building of the facade of the Church of Provenzano in Siena. Several of the oldest constructions in the zone, such as the Pieve di San Vittore, the Church of St Andrew or the Grancia di Serre, were decorated thanks also to the marbles of Noceto.
To be able to speak about a continued, and not occasional, excavation activity, we must wait however for the end of the last century when massive exploitation began of the quarries of Palmiera, located north of Armaiolo and the oldest among those already known and abandoned today. What however made possible the real development of extraction as an activity capable of occupying in concrete manner a certain quantity of labour was the opening of the new quarries south of the village of Serre, where there were natural formations of travertine extending about three kilometres. It was here that in the early 20th century the working of marbles began in fact to produce and require specialised artisans, until in the local economy it flanked in importance the traditional agricultural tradition and, compared to it, constituted a real alternative for the inhabitants of the place. A growth made possible thanks also to the progressive enlargement of the field of application of travertine to mass building and to the introduction - starting in the Twenties - of the new technical means, above all as far as regards the transformation phase of the travertine marble which here, thanks to the activity of the different enterprises risen at the side of the two quarries (one near Rapolano and the other near Serre) reached 300,000 tons, with which they coped with the requests coming from all over the world, even from the very modern United States, where architects and designers make constant use of it also for the covering of villas and skyscrapers, conferring on these metropolitan
giants a touch of "Made in Italy" refinement. This, despite the crisis that has clutched at the entire building sector since the Seventies and which brusquely arrived to put an end to a period of grace for Rapolano, that lasted for about ten years, during which the building sites that worked at a frenetic pace also contributed to the training of specialised personnel that, in addition to the usual stone-cutters and quarrymen, extended to frame-makers and milling-machine operators, electricians and mechanics, technicians and designers. An unexpected saturation of the market prokohed a vertical collapse in the orders and therefore in the number of employees, that went from 1,200 to a little more than 500. Despite this, the travertine of Rapolano, of a classic beige or light brown colour, remains a firm point of the local economy, as is noted above all by heading towards Serre, where the companies linked to the working of the marbles are concentrated. A unique product of its kind, reliable, of an eternal beauty.
