THE MARBLE EMPIRE

Scattered here and there in different parts of the Mediterranean are the remains of the quarries that yielded the polychrome marble which covered and gave splendour to Rome.
Many of the more precious marbles are in fact today no longer quarried or available on the market. In the classical age, polychrome marbles were the symbol of wealth and power. Precious material for civil and religious buildings, for making statues, for public buildings - the luxury of private individuals and the vanity of men in power. This is testified to by the remains of palaces, amphitheatres, villas, spas and temples, today in ruins, but yesterday, as our film will show through virtual reconstructions, buildings sumptuously decorated according to the whimsical fashions of Rome, sustained by supplies from quarries such as Mons Claudianus, in Egypt.

A long journey to narrate the splendour of the ancient world, now gone forever. The top-quality marble used in large quantities to build the palaces, temples and amphitheatres of Rome, proved to be a precious material that helped reconstruct the city and make it great again during the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The remains of palaces, villas and marbles quarried in ancient times, of every quality and colour, again became absolute protagonists.

Magnificent works of art might never have seen the light without that love which the ancients had for marble and if, during the classical age, the routes had not been traced for transporting this "stone that shines".

The period between the 1st and 3rd centuries in Rome witnessed the triumph of marble and, after a silence lasting centuries, inspired and fostered a new age of beauty.