Marble Marvel

Bvlgari debuts an amazing Octo Finissimo Tourbillon rendered in marble for Only Watch 2023

- JONATHAN HO 

FROM ANCIENT GREECE TO ITALY, marble has held a special place in the history of art. The Roman seat of power in particular, contributed decisively to this fixation, as the Italic Peninsula’s artists and architects who shaped this material left their eternal imprint on European culture and history – just think of the cathedrals of Pisa, Siena and Florence, or Michelangelo’s David.

That said, there’s popular perception, thanks to movies like Russell Crowe’s Gladiator, that Rome gleams as a city drenched in white marble. But the reality is, though only the splendid white marble from the quarries in the Apuan Alps (Carrara) would do for the main monuments of the Roman city, the Empire imported marble from their conquests – Numidia (today’s Tunisia), Greece and Egypt – and then extracted closer to the capital for municipal buildings, making the city a riot of colour especially with bright wall-frescoes.