Note 43 — Chapter I

The quarries opened by the Romans in Elba are now practically abandoned. The Catalogue to the Italian Section of the London International Exhibition of 1862 speaks of the granites of Elba as ‘but little used, although blocks and columns of almost any size may be had.’ In the late mediaeval and Renaissance period however, the quarries of Elba were worked, and the granite columns of the Baptistry of Pisa were cut there in the twelfth century, while Cosimo I extracted thence the granite block out of which he cut the tazza of the Boboli Gardens mentioned by Vasari a few sentences further on. Jervis, I Tesori Sotterranei dell’ Italia, Torino, 1889, p. 315, speaks of the remains of Roman quarrying works to be seen on the Island. He believes that the grey columns of the Pantheon (see Note infra) are Elban, and Cellini (Scultura, ch. vi) claims an Elban origin for the granite column of S. Trinità, Florence, which is certainly antique and of Roman provenance, see postea, p. 110 f.