Tuscan Paesina Or Dream Stone

Tuscan Paesina or Dream Stone, Pietra Paesina. Polished on one side. Dimensions: 12.5 x 12 cm. Weight: 270g. Paesina stone is a variety of Alberese limestone found in Italy in the Northern Apennines and the mountains of Morello, Silla, and Santa Fioria. It represents the most extraordinary case of "figure stone" within the limestone family. This rock is also called marble or ruiniform limestone, landscape stone, or Florentine marble. Sawn and polished, with successive slices revealing different patterns on each cut, Paesina evokes ruiniform landscapes. The greens, blues, or grays suggest the sky and sea, while the brown veins suggest houses, castles, towers, keeps, and ramparts, ruined churches and villages, or shores, cliffs, and caves. The "pietra paesina" (Paetian stone) aroused the admiration of collectors of natural history cabinets during the Renaissance. The Medici family decorated their Italian cabinets with them, and Florentine artisans incorporated them into hardstone marquetry. Paesina stone was sometimes painted, its fantastical decoration serving as a background for these 17th- and 18th-century stone paintings, highly prized by collectors. This sedimentary rock, composed primarily of compact Eocene limestone and clay, formed between 70 and 50 million years ago. Infiltrations of iron and manganese hydroxide are responsible for these patterns and colors, but their genesis is still widely debated. According to some geologists, the infiltrations initially produced chromatic changes, and then tectonic movements created micro-fractures, resulting in the resulting slippage of the rock formations and the ruin-like pattern. Generally, the most intense chromatic changes are found only in the outer layers of the limestone, while the core of the rock retains delicate shades of gray and light blue, reminiscent of skies or reflecting pools. The use of this limestone as an ornamental stone dates back to antiquity, but it was in the 16th century that the Florentines made these extraordinary landscapes and colors particularly prized. Paesina slabs were then used to decorate furniture and cabinets, often crafted using the "commesso" technique (assembling hard stones). From the following century onward, Paesina decorations spread beyond Italy, and it was only in the 19th century that polished Paesina slabs were appreciated as true works of art.