The Apricena stone in the plastic arts

The Apricena stone made its first appearance in the plastic arts in the II century B.C. when works in clay were gradually replaced by local stone in the first local craft workshop. The same happened in other parts of Italy. We know this because of some findings such as portraits depicting private citizens, of great artistic importance, and lots of fragments of capitals and slabs. We don't know anything about the usage of this limestone in the Roman architecture. In the Dark Middle Ages it was only used for church facings. After the Year One Thousand the Normans began to bild the first towers replaced then by the castels wanted by the Swabian Frederick II. They were surely in stone but they are almost all destroyed. The only one which is still in a good state is in Torremaggiore and is a national monument since 1902. Its atrium is paved in Apricena stone.
In the XVIII and XIX centuries the Apricena stone was widely used in the Neapolitan architecture for the Royal Palaces in Neaples, Portici and Caserta, some churches and private buildings. Some documents attest that when King Carlo III ordered him to choose the marble for the Royal Palace in Caserta, the engineer Canard chose the Apricena stone. The limestone was also used in the Roman architecture for some important buildings and works of art: " Palazzo di giustizia", " Palazzo Venezia", " Università Gregoriana", " Traforo di S.Bibiana" and " Palazzo INA". After the II world war the output has rapidly increased for the very great demand of building material. Nowadays the Apricena stone has got an international importance: most of all, it is being used for the construction of the " Aula liturgica Padre Pio", in San Giovanni Rotondo, planned by the architect Renzo Piano. With regards to the contemporary sculpture we must mention Postiglione's works, the Fountain in the railway station square in Foggia and the facing of the hospital "Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza" in San Giovanni Rotondo. The annual "Simposio internazionale di scultura" is since 1990 a further opportunity for the worldwide spreading of the Apricena stone in the arts.

The site

The marble basin of Apricena is on a ground north-west to the small town, on the plain betweenthe Gargano and the Appennini, 110-130 metres high. It extends to quite 13,50 square miles of cultivated ground. The quite 300 quarries are on Canale dell'Elce,Capacchione, Casa di Campo, Caso, Coppacchie, Montaguto, Murgette, Panza, Posta Nuova, Rodisani, San Giovanni in Piano, San Giovannino, Tre Fosse, Tre Valli. The number of the quarries has steadily increased after the Second World War and the annual proceeds are now of 80 thousands millions lire. Apricena is now the third marble field in Italy after Carrara and Verona.

Using the marble

The traffic signs outside the the town define Apricena as "the town of marble and limestone" to underline the strong relation between those materials and the town itself with its inhabitants. The stone has infact ever been very important even in the most ordinary things. The "Biancone" has often been used in squared blocks to support the vines or to mark the boundaries; it was also used to make the wheels to grind or to cover wells and cisterns. The stones strewn on the ground were gathered to make land tillable and used for walled enclosures; they were also used to build little refuges for the shepherds or even chapels. Among the domestic things made in stone there were mortars, presses, basins, containers, tables and benches. As to the urban architecture there has ever been a large use of stone especially for flooring, cladding, stairs and lintels; the slabs few centimetres thick were used to make window-sills and balconies. Until few decades ago the discarded stones were reduced to lime in the kilns near the built-up area.