VAYES STONE FROM VAL DI SUSA
by Ferzini Frans (1997)© L'informatore del Marmista, Verona, Giorgio Zusi Editore, n. 432, pp. 30-33 [original title: La pietra di Vayes in Val di Susa]
The material was widely used in Turin, especially in
Palazzo Madama and the Court of Appeal
In the lower part of the Valle di Susa, 33 km from Turin, State Road
24 leads to Moncenisio, the birthplace of Sant'Antonio di Susa,
which in turn is only about one km from the hamlet of Vaie. The
characteristic hamlet stands on the right of the Dora Riparia River
and is shaded by dense woods from which a solitary rock formation -
the "Pera Ussa"(1) - stands out like a lonely sentinel. This is the
most evident part of a rocky formation extending to the south-east
which is home to several dimensional stone quarries which were once
actively worked and known even to the Romans. These local quarries,
by now abandoned, produced a special stone in terms of structure,
properties and colour - quite unlike the other materials worked in
the valley: "... a kind of granite highly resistand to atmospheric
agents, extremely hard, tenacious and rather difficult to work" (Blangino,
The Major Stone Quarries in Northern Italy, 1895).
“Vayes stone” is a prophyry-gneiss with a granular structure rather
similar to the better-known Borgogna gneiss, from which it differs
in terms of larger grain structure and their highly varied colours,
generally beige-greenish amongst which white quartz creates a
mottling effect to various shapes and sizes in which the form of the
Cross is by no means rare. Density, as for Borgone Gneiss, is 0.66,
i.e. equal to an apparent average weight of 2660 kg/m³.
The most important quarry is undoubtedly that managed by Pent Bros.,
just outside the village in the Ca’ Podere Pradera locality which
Blangino called “ Grangia Picheria”, i.e. the place where stone was
worked. Stone processing here is witnessed by the small, open-space
building with stone and mortar walls and a stone slab roof rather
like the mountain refuges in the area once used by shepherds; it is
the only remaining example of the stone-working traditions of the
area and the locality is populary called “Ca’ del Picapera” [the
stone-working house](2).
Behind the building, a small grassy space tucked under the
mountainside served as a little depot for the quarry, where still
today, merged with the advancing woodlands, one can see various
semi-finished products, blocks and slabs in various stages of
completion(3) and bearing the unmistakable signs of the chisels used
for cutting and splitting operations(4).
The face of the main quarry faced north and cut into the “Pera Ussa”
formation, which unfortunately suffers the drawback of faults and
cracks, while the seam itself is undulating and irregular – which
all meant that it was extremely difficult to produce larger blocks
of material.
We know that the working method used here, at the beginning of the
century, was the same as that employed in other granite and gneiss
quarries, i.e. exposure of the living rock having first removed the
overburden of soil and vegetation, followed by the use of pickaxes
to remove the unusable stone of thicknesses ranging between 0.5 and
2 metres. Once a sound seam of rock was found, individual blocks
were extracded using explosives placed inside drill-holes,
themselves extremely difficult to prepare. The detached blocks were
then moved using crowbars and wooden rollers or were tied together
and hauled by a winch on a solid base on the right-hand side of the
factory. Once brought down to the depot, the blocks underwent the
various finishing operations, which were by no means easy given the
high consumption of tools and the great deal of manual labour needed
for squaring-off, levelling and cutting operations, as can easily be
imagined from the dimensions of the block still standing at the foot
of the quarry face. This block has deeply engraved vertical marks(5)
indicating the cuts and chiselling involved in separating it from
the host rock, an immense task given the hardness of the material
and its mineral inserts(6).
Despite these various technical difficulties, the ledgers of Pent
Co., now housed in the Archives of Vaie Public Library, list
significant orders and frenetic activity, especially at the
beginning of the century, with deliveries of the material to Turin
and other parts of Piedmont: these supplies largely involve
processed materials especially intended to withstand heavy duty
installations, such as roads, road and railway embankments,
kerbstones, bollards and medallions – the best examples of which can
still be seen in Vaie itself, with its stone balconies and alleys.
The finishing work involved classical surface treatments requiring
three different size of chisel to achieve a smooth texture (rough-finishing,
final-finishing), as well as bush-hammering for the tops of bollards,
the connecting segments between two blocks and so forth(7).
Balangino gives an idea of prices in 1895, distinguishing between
products types and areas of supply.
The projects completed in “Vayes stone” include the Monument to the
Fallen inaugurated on 25th April 1995 in Piazza del Priore in the
centre of Vaie, comprising three stone modules quarried at the
beginning of the century and donated to the Local Council by the
Pent family. One of the three blocks stands 3 m high like a monilith,
creating a symbolic contrast between form-material and space; it has
a small fountain recalling the magical Celtic relationship between
water and rock. The monument was carved using the “subbia” chisel
and cut with diamond disks by sculptor Frans Ferzini and
painter-architect Giancarlo De Leo from the Val di Susa.
Turin also boasts many buildings which exploit the fine qualities of
Vaie stone, such as the architectural splendour of Palazzo Madama,
where it was used for the skirting and the beautiful columns scanned
in two orders, the facade of the Church of Santa Cristina by Juvarra
built in 1718, the austere colonnade of the facade of the Court of
Appeal built in 1838 and the plinths, stands and basements of
numerous 1800s statues.
Nor can one overlook, in the melancholy landscapes of Autumn, the
paving of the streets of the centre, in which slabs of Vayes stone,
Borgogna, Bussoleno and Luserna gneiss combine in a concert of
colours formed by acid and alkaline ageing(8) so wonderfully
highlighted by rainfall.
Acknowledgement: The author would especially like to thank the Mayor
of Vaie, Ms. Giglini, for assistance provided in examining local
archives.
Notes:
(1) Known as Pietra Aguzza and Roccia Aguzza
(2) Literally “the house of the stone carver”
(3) A term used to define small-medium erratic rock formations
(4) Wedges used to split rock
(5) The chisels were housed in a special device to create a V-shaped
cut
(б) Splitting the block was an extremely difficult operation
(7) This task also involved carving distinct live edges
(8) The feldspar present in gneiss gives rise to different shades
depending on the predominance of orthose (acid) or plagioclase (alkaline),
features which are then accentuated by the action of atmospheric
agents
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