06/04/2026
Franco Pierotti could read a mountain.
For nearly sixty years he ran the Cervaiole quarry on Monte Altissimo, above Seravezza in Tuscany. He trained nearly every quarryman working it today. He liked to remind people that the first hammer blow on Michelangelo’s Pietà was not struck by Michelangelo — it was struck by a quarryman.
We were humbled to stand in his presence.
This is part of how we work. We travel to these mountains. We meet the people who pull the stone. We pick the slabs ourselves and bring them home — across an ocean, across a continent, into our gallery in Liberty Lake. By the time a piece of Arabescato Cervaiole reaches a kitchen or a wall, it has passed through the hands of someone like Franco, up on a mountain you’ll likely never see.
That part is usually invisible. This time we wanted you to see it.
Franco passed in 2020. The men he trained are still up there, still reading the mountain. The Arabescato Cervaiole he coaxed out of it is in our gallery now.
In memory of Franco Pierotti · Cava delle Cervaiole · 1940-2020
Grazie, Henraux.
