We owe to a great architect from Brescia, Rodolfo Vantini (1792-1856), the invention of the monumental Holy Fields. Inspired by the poetics of Ugo Foscolo’s Sepulchres and Canova’s style, the designer imagined a “city of the dead” in Botticino stone. Combining neoclassical aesthetics with romantic sensibility, Vantini entrusted architecture and sculpture with a common celebratory goal, which later became the model for all European cemeteries. He also paved the way for a large number of artists and marble craftsmen, contributing to the diffusion of a local tradition: from simple tombstones to the most complex plastic ornamentation.

It was in this furrow that Ghirardi Marmi’s activity was born in 1938, later exported overseas thanks to a consolidated artisan expertise. The executive quality of the manufactured articles, combined with fine materials and artistic sensitivity, is combined with a reference to the naturalistic values of American culture. Examples are the Raleigh Memorial Park in North Carolina and the Greenwood Memorial Park in Fort Worth (Texas). But the list extends to many other mausoleums made by Ghirardi Marmi in Florida, California, Michigan, Colorado, Missouri, Tennessee. The European typology of academic origin finds a new balance within the picturesque conception of parks, open spaces and the rhythm of the seasons. Even the mournful dimension acquires a meaning that blends the work of man with the world of nature, entrusting the stone with the task of leaving an indelible testimony.

From Verona, this limestone spread widely throughout the Po Valley: in Bergamo, Brescia, Parma, Bologna, Padua and Venice, important buildings from the Romanesque and Gothic periods stand out, where the intense chromaticism reflects the aesthetic values of an urban and noble culture. Even in those days, the warm shades made Veronese limestone unique, especially in the alternating white stone courses – the so-called striation – and in the laying of large flooring surfaces. Even today the image of the church interiors is accompanied by the classic alternation of small squares or lozenges to come celebrated by Palladio.

Not only a construction element, Rosso Verona became a precious material for sculpture and plastic decoration. So for the rosettes, stylish lions, in the sarcophagi, the statues, the baptismal fonts, the balconies. A second characteristic that made Rosso Verona famous, is namely the presence in the limestone paste of Ammonites (more or less large fossil volute shells), which were symbolically interpreted as a manifestation of the magic of nature and its mysticism. Leonardo (da Vinci) was also fascinated by them.

Extracted from the Lessini Mountains, Rosso Verona is the undisputed protagonist of a long series of modern and contemporary architecture; suffice it to mention the works of Carlo Scarpa, who exalted its chromaticism almost in a Byzantine and “lagunare” style. More recently, the restoration of the Fondaco dei Tedeschi in Venice, conducted by Rem Koolhas with OMA, sees the reinterpretation of the typical striation in the atrium as a dizzying optical texture.

Marmi Ghirardi’s creations with Rosso Verone are numerous, especially religious architecture and interior design. These include the church of St. Stephen in East Grand Rapids (Michigan, USA), where the liturgical artifacts are translated into a highly poetic sequence, thanks to the refined craftsmanship and the symbolic value of the individual artifacts: the Eucharistic altar, the altar of the Blessed Sacrament, the ambo, the baptismal font and the decorative inserts on the flooring. In the recent Brasserie Chavot in London Rosso Verona becomes one of the protagonists of the mosaic on the floor: a real carpet that welcomes the public as if inside a noble residence.