Artistic and commercial collaboration with numerous "Botteghe artigiane della pietra" (Stone Craft Shops) in Vicenza and the surrounding area has allowed us, since 1930s, to offer a large range of sculptures for decoration of gardens and for furnishing items. Our function has been that of an intermediary between the "Botteghe della Pietra" (Stonework Shops) starting from the well-known Palladio and Scamozzi schools and the needs of expert clients who recognise the high artistic and commercial value of the works we offer. The sculptures we offer are the expression of a craft culture that has for centuries taken ideas and suggestions from the innumerable works of art in Pietra di Vicenza (Vicenza Stone) which embellish hundreds of Veneto villas built between 1500 and 1800. The products we offer are not mass produced, they are all unique.
None are identical, as they are made individually with ancient techniques, handed down from father to son.
"Pietra di Vicenza" (Vicenza Stone) is a whitish limestone, with a straw-yellow tinge due to minimum traces of clay.
"Pietra di Vicenza" (Vicenza Stone) is found in quarries with a small quantity of water. This ensures that the stone retains the minimum degree of hardness, so that it can be easily cut with a wooden saw. When it is removed from its natural environment, it loses its quarry water and harden substantially.
"Pietra di Vicenza" (Vicenza Stone) is resistant to atmospheric conditions and polluting substances in the air, and therefore can be used for outdoor works without any problems.
Over the past few years requests for works in "Pietra di Vicenza" (Vicenza Stone) have once more become popular and it has also been specifically used to satisfy the growing demand for interior decoration, i.e. fireplaces, balustrade, statues, columns, busts, friezes, bases (capitals) for small and large tables, worktops, etc. Art houses, antique dealers, architects and collectionists are all extremely interested in the craftwork carried out in "Pietra di Vicenza" (Vicenza Stone).

Soft stones like "S. Gottardo" and "San Germano" are quarried in the mining area of the Colli Berici near Vicenza. These fairly well-known stones have been used by innumerable artists and architects througout the centuries. The most famous of all was Palladio (XVI century), who used it extensively in building his monumental palaces and Veneto Villas.
The Colli Berici hills are composed of Secondary and Tertiary formations. The former is meagerly represented by more recent layers from the cretaceous period, while the latter, especially the Eocene and Oligocene formations, are a great deal more extensive.
The Pietra di San Gottardo is a whitish limestone tending to straw- yellow due to minimal traces of clay, attributable to the Oligocene Era. This is a pure biospartic limestone, rich in micro- and macro-foraminifers with algae, bryozoan, and echnoid remains distributed in a uniform manner. Its grain is heterogeneous and consists of a fairly fine carbonate matrix incorporating more or less plentiful and coarse fossile remains. When the rock is newly quarried it is slightly water-logged, making it softer and easier to work and thus suitable for sculpturing purposes. With time the stone loses its water, hardening and becoming more resistant to decay.

San Gottardo

Pietra Gialla (Yellow Stone) San Germano

San Gottardo Fiorito

San Gottardo Antichizzato

San Gottardo Fiorito Antichizzato

 

Palladio and Vicenza City included in the UNESCO world heritage list In December 1994, Vicenza - the city of Palladio - was included in UNESCO's World Heritage list in recognition that its Palladian architectural treasures are to be considered of exceptional interest and of universal value, and that they have exerted a great influence on the culture of the world as a whole. The territory that makes up the province preserves an extraordinary treasure: hundreds of villas that mark centuries of Venetian culture. Almost all of the country residences designed by Andrea Palladio are to be found in our countryside. The civilization of Villa Between the XV and the XVIII century the Villa was the same as a country residence, inhabited between the end of springand the beginning of autumn by the urban classes; mostly noblemen, for the sake of a change, rest and, especially for the direct control of farming activities and land profits. In Venetia, these ways of life integrated with the buildings. They are seen as an expression of true and real "civilization", because they have faithfully represented the variations in artistic culture, economic points of junction, social relations and government interests over the territory. Consequently, history and the use of spaces blend into a unison.