Ascoli Piceno
Ascoli Piceno Marche Italy: The historical center of Ascoli owes its so harmonic and compact aspect to the travertino that, since the origins, you/he/she has been the principal material in the construction of the buildings of every kind.
Simple give residences, to the buildings of the power and to those ladylike, to he/she asked her, to the floorings of the plazas, this stone for two thousand years and without interruption, also with to flow of the history and of the styles, you/he/she has constituted the urban fabric of the city making her so only and particular.
The art of the travertino
The travertino is not an easy stone to work, yet the artisans and the artists of all the epochs have known how to draw decorative elements precious of it. Especially in the medioevo and in the rinascimento, the magistris de pretas represented an important reality of the arts of the city. The long tradition of the travertino continues today still in the by now rare artisan shops and thanks to the choice of the local sculptors, aware of the oneness of its history and intenzionati not to leave to die her
The caves
The travertino was extracted in the near caves to the city - S. Mark, Rosara and Acquasanta Terme, these last still active - and she was locally used not only, but exported in different regions of Italy and to the foreign countries. In these caves the quality of the various stone slightly for nuisance and for thin chromatic tones, on a base commune of color ivory that with the years it assumes the aspect at the same solar and severe time, that we today can admire at the streets of the center.
II travertino today
To relaunch its use, in 1998 the Chamber of Commerce has banished a national contest for works of sculpture and of I furnish, urban or sacred, you realize with the alone travertino ascolano. The winning works have been exposed in the public gardens and in other places of the city.