Museum
The small museum in the Via Alfani displays examples of Pietre Dure works, including cabinets, table tops and plates, showing an immense repertoire of decoration, usually either flowers, fruits and animals, but also sometimes other picturesque scenes, including a famous view of the Piazza della Signoria. There is also a large baroque fireplace entirely covered in malachite, a dazzling and brilliant green stone as well as copies of painting executed in inlaid stone. Some of the exhibition space is dedicated to particular types of stone, such as the paesina, extracted near Florence, the grain and colour of which can be used to create vivid landscapes.
An exhibition of the technical processes of Pietre Dure works through history, can be found on the first floor as well as a large range of finished works dating back to the time of the Medici. There are vases and furnishings decorated with Art Nouveau designs of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including a tabletop with a harp and garland by Emilio Zocchi (1849) and another decorated with flowers and birds by Niccolò Betti (1855).
Read more about this topic: Opificio Delle Pietre Dure
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