Pietra Di Matraia Sandstone Firplace, Pietra Di Matraia Grey Sandstone

Matraia Stone is a solid grey-colour sandstone, verging to turquoise, with an intense and warm tone. Due to its geotechnical characteristics, this stone is very suitable to cladding or as ornamental element, both inside and outside.
It also resists in very cold or very hot climates, since due to its structure (not stratified) it does not exfoliate and has a high durability (works executed at the beginning of the 19th Century are still in perfect state).
Matraia Stone takes the name of the area where the most part of the quarries are: the village of Matraia is on the hills at North of the town of Lucca, on the slops Pizzorne’s plateau.
The use of Matraia Stone in construction dates back to the 11th Century or even before.
In the centre of Lucca, there are many type of claddings (flooring and skirting) and ornamental works (thresholds, jambs and cornices) in Matraia Stone in buildings and churches built around the year 1000.
From the 16th Century onwards Matraia Stones was intensively used to pave the streets and to renovate the villas in Lucca and in the adjacent areas. It also played a primary role as ornamental stone to the stately palaces of that time.
The use of Matraia Stone has always been limited to the area of Lucca. Today the technological progress has increased extraction and the consequent production of Matraia Stone, which can now be introduced to other markets in Italy and abroad.
The long tradition of Matraia Stone still continues today. It is an evident sign of elegance obtained with the sandstone processing.
The most common uses of Matraia Stone are ornamentals, for cladding and flooring.
Matraia Stone is a sandstone with medium grain, mainly constituted by quartz and feldspar.
The natural warm ash-colour of Matraia Stone, becomes grey verging to turquoise if smoothed or grey intense if rough (only sawn). Other types of finishing are: grit-blasting (similar to flamed), antiqued, grit-blasting + antiqued, grooved and polished.