MARMO DI ZANDOBBIO
The Zandobbio marble is a historic stone material from the province of Bergamo, well known since ancient times.
Actually this is not a marble in the strict sense, but rather a compact crystalline dolomite with a saccharoidal pattern, white or pink in its finest varieties. The Jurassic age vein (around 200 million years), approximately 160 m deep, surfaces in the hilly area east of Bergamo, in the low Val Cavallina, in the municipalities of Trescore Balneario and Zandobbio.
Zandobbio marble can be seen in the big blocks used for the walls of Romanesque churches, like the parish of San Giorgio in Campis in Zandobbio, dating back to the 10th and 11th centuries, but especially some of Bergamo’s landmarks, such as the Porta San Giacomo, the Palazzo Nuovo (which now houses the Biblioteca Angelo Mai) and Fontana Contarini, and numerous elements of street furniture (puteals, railings, benches, stairs, door and window frames and sills). In the 30s it was widely used in important architectural works outside of Italy, as in the United Nations building in Geneva and in the Capitolio Nacional palace in Havana, Cuba.