October 14–15, 2026 · Pietrasanta
Every commission begins the same way: a block of white Carrara marble, and a face that does not exist yet.
This time the face belongs to Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, the Roman architect of the first century BC whose De Architectura gave the West its first rules of building: firmness, commodity, delight. No portrait of him survives from life. Every likeness is an act of imagination, and this one reached us as a 3D-printed model supplied by a private client. The model sets the form. The marble, and the hands, decide how it will live.
Opening the block
The first morning is loud. Alberto marks the block, then lets the disc open the first cuts. A heavy hammer follows, and the excess comes away in long white flakes that pile up at his feet. It is the least romantic hour of a sculpture, and the most decisive: what is removed now can never be put back.
Point by point
On the second day the model takes its place beside the block, inside a frame of rods and callipers. This is the pointing technique, the method Pietrasanta workshops have relied on for generations: measure a point on the model, find it in the stone, remove marble until the two agree. Then the next point, and the next.
It is slow work, in the tradition of Canova: technology to serve the vision, the hand to serve the finish. The beard, the folds of the toga, the final surface will pass only through Alberto’s hands.
Next
In Part II, the head of the architect begins to emerge from the block.
Interested in a portrait or a custom marble sculpture of your own? Commission a sculptor and speak directly with Alberto.