Minerals from Italy

This tag collects together all the current minerals we have in stock that come from Italy.

Below the product listings, I’ve gone into a little depth about mineral specimens from Italy – famous locales and specimens, and those that are most well known amongst collectors.

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Italy has a long history of mining, with evidence of some of the earliest copper extraction in Western Europe, dating to around 3500 BC.

The Roman Empire, of course, brought tremendous change to mining, with hydraulic and shaft mining technologies being used to fuel the enormous amount of materials required for the building and expansion of the empire. Lead was of particular importance to the Romans, used in everything from coins to makeups to aqueducts.

The Roman Pliny wrote a tremendous work called Naturalis Historia, or ‘Natural History’, which contained sections on stones, minerals, and gemstones which were still considered to be an excellent resource for hundreds of years after they were written.

Much of Italian mining history leant heavily on decorative stone, too – and taking the high speed train from Rome to Naples today you will still pass many active quarries mining huge slabs. A walk around Rome will reveal many decorative stone panels, even in modern buildings – some of which would be considered utterly unaffordable in other countries.

In more modern times, various minerals are extracted from Italy – feldspar and fluorite especially.

There are also large mineral deposits exist that are currently not exploited; copper, tungsten, bauxite, cobalt, manganese, etc – and geothermal lithium bearing fluids.

Italy is not particularly well known by collectors for minerals or for gemstones, although small Emeralds are found in Piedmont, they are not of the quality of those from Colombia, Afghanistan, Zambia, or Brazil.

Some collectors may value the crystalline sulphur specimens available from numerous volcanic locales within Italy – particularly Agrigento.

Walking around various Italian cities, the most likely things you will see are red Coral and cameo carvings; Italy does have a thriving jewellery and lapidary industry, but much of the materials used are imported.

If you are ever in the area, the mineralogical museum of Naples is vast and detailed, with thousands of specimens including a great number from Vesuvius itself.

 

 

For other specimens from Italy, check out the links below.

Italy

Fossils from Italy - Minerals from Italy