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in celebration of sculptors. Pietrasanta has sent many artisans to participate. The festival has swept the artistic world and was an annual event until the pandemic year of 2020. Its continuation is planned for April 6-17, 2021. Festival founder and chairman, Dr. Ted Spears, explained, “We provide the marble, the tools and the work area and it is their job to bring a design that they can complete.” Spears said, “It is truly amazing the things they can produce in two weeks.” Artisans mostly arrive from the U.S., but also from Europe and Asia. Quarry owner, Alabama Marble, Mineral & Mining Company (AM3), continues the tradition of gifting marble blocks to sculptors during the event. Visitors can watch artisans chisel, chip and sculpt creations during the 12-day period. Sylacauga’s library, named the B.B. Comer Library, is centrally located and houses numerous marble creations carved from local stone. Some marble pieces are also sold at the library. Not all marble in Sylacauga is pure white. Portions of the deposit produce types of veining in black, pink, gray and yellow hues. And not all marble extracted from the quarries is used for artistic or architectural works. Two adjacent quarries, owned by separate companies, are exclusively for commercial purposes. The stone is ground into powder which goes into a wide variety of products: cosmetics, toothpaste, chewing gum, paint, pharmaceuticals, paper and many more. Historically, it was the Shawnee tribe of native Americans who first discovered outcroppings of the white crystalline stone. It is believed they used the marble primarily for carving arrowheads. The first recorded discovery of Sylacauga marble was in 1820 by Dr. Edward Gantt, a surgeon who had travelled with General Andrew Jackson through the area in 1814. Following the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, he returned from Tennessee and purchased land for quarrying after Alabama became a state in 1819. It was surely the aforementioned Giuseppe Moretti who brought a Renaissance to the Sylacauga marble industry after the turn of the century. The Italian sculptor had an immediate fascination with the Alabama stone when he first saw a Bible made from it in a friend’s office. He became effusive in praise and widely proclaimed the spectacular merits of Alabama marble. Moretti, creator of the 56-foot Vulcan, moved to Alabama in 1904. He carved what he considered his masterpiece - The Head of Christ. He so loved the creation that he kept it with him the rest of his life. An apprentice to Moretti reflected, “He carved the HEAD OF CHRIST out of the depths of his own heart, in the material that he loved and afterwards devoted almost ten years of his life to promoting and developing. This devotion was Mr. Moretti’s gift to Alabama.” The best news: that very masterpiece by Moretti can be viewed in the Alabama Archives building in Montgomery. A final bit of good news: Don’t worry if you can’t travel to Syla- cauga this year. Geologists estimate the quarries have enough mar- ble for another 250 years. n 18 AL/ Metro 360 www.almetro360.com "Then and Now" by Elena Mutinelli Sylacauga marble has been chosen for the ceiling of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. so that natural light could filter through onto the seated statue of our sixteenth president.