# Cipollino marble

- Page: https://taslar.bumba.tr/en/stones/cipollino-marble/
- Turkish: Cipollino mermeri
- Also known as: Karystian marble, Marmor carystium, Cipollino verde, Cipolin
- Kind: Rock
- Classification: Rocks › Metamorphic rocks › Non-foliated
- Hardness (Mohs): 3–4
- Specific gravity: 2.6–2.8 g/cm³
- Colours: greenish white, green, bluish green, grey
- Composition: Calcite marble with layers rich in green iron-bearing silicate minerals such as chlorite and epidote, and thin bands of mica. The chlorite and epidote give the green colour.
- Texture: Medium-grained and sugary, with crystals 0.2–0.6 mm across. Folded, wavy green bands and thin mica layers create an onion-skin-like layering.
- Value ladder: 4/9 step, Fine dimension stone and ore

The marble of Euboea, with wavy green bands like the layers of an onion: in the columns of Roman temples and Hagia Sophia.

Cipollino is a marble with thick, wavy green bands on a greenish-white ground. Its name comes from cipolla, Italian for onion, because its layers recall onion skins. Its main source is the south-west coast of the Greek island of Euboea. The Romans called it “marmor carystium” (marble of Karystos) and used it above all for large one-piece columns.

## How does it form?

Cipollino is a **marble**: limestone that recrystallised without melting under heat and pressure deep underground. The original limestone was not pure, and during metamorphism its clay and other impurities turned into green, iron-bearing silicate minerals such as **chlorite** and **epidote**, along with thin layers of **mica**.

These green minerals gathered in layers, and the rock was later folded. The result is a stone with wavy bands in which whitish calcite alternates with green, silicate-rich layers. That is why cipollino is classed as a **silicate marble**, one that contains a significant amount of silicate minerals besides calcite. The grains are 0.2–0.6 mm across, large enough to be seen with the naked eye. The intensity of the colour varies from quarry to quarry; on Euboea the stone becomes darker in the quarries further north.

## What is it used for?

- **Roman columns:** The Greeks were the first to work it. The stone was first brought to Rome in the 2nd century BC and became widespread from the 1st century BC. The Romans used it above all for large, smooth column shafts, as in the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, the Basilica Aemilia and the imperial forums. After AD 17 the Karystos quarries became imperial property.
- **Houses and sculpture:** Pliny the Elder wrote that cipollino was used in the homes of wealthy Roman families. It was also used for statues and the torsos of busts.
- **Byzantine times and later:** Cipollino was used in Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (537) and in St Mark's Basilica in Venice (1094). The Ottomans also reused stone taken from older buildings: the Green Mosque at İznik has a single cipollino verde facing slab 1.25 m long, a stone that is rare even in Istanbul.
- **Today:** It is still quarried on a small scale on Euboea, and similar cipollino-type marbles from Italy and Switzerland were used as facing stone in 19th- and 20th-century buildings.

## Where is it found?

Ancient cipollino came from quarries on the south-west coast of Euboea **between Styra and Karystos** and on the slopes of Mount Ochi; some ancient quarry faces are more than 100 metres long. A grey variety called “cipollino nero” was also quarried in the same area. Similar marbles were worked in Italy in the Apuan Alps and at Valdieri near Cuneo, and in Switzerland at Saillon in Valais. Stone from the Valdieri quarries went into buildings in Turin such as the Church of the Holy Spirit, the Bank of Italy building and the Polytechnic, and a yellow-orange cipollino was quarried at Desertetto from the 1920s to the 1970s. The quarry of the Swiss “Cipolin de Saillon” was worked from 1876 to 1926.

## How to recognise it

- Thick, wavy, folded green bands run across a greenish-white ground, with thin, shiny mica layers between them.
- Its pattern depends strongly on how it is cut: a slab sawn parallel to the layers looks plain greenish on its face, and the bands show only on the edges.
- The grain is medium-sized and sugary; it fizzes when a drop of dilute acid is added.
- A steel knife can scratch it, but it cannot scratch glass.

## Fakes and imitations

- Many green-banded or green-veined stones have been called “cipollino” in the trade; some of them are not even marble.
- Green-and-white verd antique looks like marble but is a serpentine breccia, and it can be confused with cipollino.
- On porcelain tiles that imitate green-banded marble, the pattern is only printed on the surface and repeats every few tiles.

## What determines its value?

As an ornamental and building stone, its value depends on whether large, crack-free blocks can be quarried, on regular and attractive green banding, on the shade of colour and on how well it takes a polish. Because the pattern changes so much with the direction of cutting, sawing the blocks the right way also matters. Its fame in ancient Rome and its place in historic buildings add to the interest.

This information is educational, not buying, selling or investment advice. Value varies enormously with quality and treatment.

## Myths and misconceptions

- Myth: Every stone called “cipollino” is a green-banded marble. Fact: The name has been used loosely over the centuries. In the famous Corsi collection at Oxford University, a sample labelled “cipollino verde” turned out to be a metamorphosed gabbro (metagabbro); nobody would call it cipollino today.
- Myth: Cipollino and verd antique are the same green Greek marble. Fact: Cipollino is a calcite marble from Euboea, banded green by chlorite and epidote. Verd antique, quarried near Larissa in Thessaly, is a breccia made of serpentine and is not really a marble at all.

## Did you know?

- Emperor Hadrian's villa at Tivoli had a crocodile carved from cipollino; the stone's green bands are thought to have been chosen because they look like the animal's scales.
- The great column shafts of the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, still standing in the Roman Forum, are cipollino.
- The ancient quarries were abandoned after the 7th century, but around 1880 the English stone merchant William Brindley reopened them.

## Where is it found?

- Karystos and the slopes of Mount Ochi, Euboea, Greece (Type locality): Main source of the stone the Romans called “marmor carystium”; ancient quarry faces more than 100 metres long can still be seen.
- Styra, Euboea, Greece (Major deposit): Ancient quarries on the island's south-west coast between Styra and Karystos; the colour darkens in the quarries further north.
- Apuan Alps, Tuscany, Italy (Known locality): An area where similar cipollino-type marbles are also quarried.
- Valdieri (Desertetto), Cuneo, Italy (Known locality): Quarries of bardiglio, white and cipollino marble; a yellow-orange cipollino was quarried at Desertetto from the 1920s to the 1970s. These stones were used in several buildings in Turin.
- Saillon, Valais, Switzerland (Historic source): The quarry of the marble known as “Cipolin de Saillon” was worked from 1876 to 1926.

## Sources

- [Cipollino marble](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cipollino_marble), Wikipedia
- [Marmo cipollino](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmo_cipollino), Wikipedia (Italian)
- [Corsi Collection of Decorative Stones, no. 89: Cipollino verde](https://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/corsi/stones/view/89), Oxford University Museum of Natural History
- [Corsi Collection of Decorative Stones, no. 911: Cipollino verde (metagabbro)](https://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/corsi/stones/view/911), Oxford University Museum of Natural History
- [Corsi Collection of Decorative Stones, no. 144: Cipollino nero](https://www.oum.ox.ac.uk/corsi/stones/view/144), Oxford University Museum of Natural History
- [Karystos](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karystos), Wikipedia
- [Styra](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Styra), Wikipedia
- [Valdieri](https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valdieri), Wikipedia (Italian)
- [Saillon](https://hls-dhs-dss.ch/fr/articles/002735/2012-05-29/), Dictionnaire historique de la Suisse (DHS), 2012
- [Marble](https://www.britannica.com/science/marble-rock), Encyclopaedia Britannica
- [Density of Solids](https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/density-solids-d_1265.html), The Engineering ToolBox
- [İznik Yeşil Camii'ndeki Bizans Yapı Malzemeleri (Zeki Boleken)](https://akmb.gov.tr/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/32-Zeki-Boleken-1.pdf), Atatürk Kültür Merkezi Başkanlığı (AKMB)


Source: https://taslar.bumba.tr/en/stones/cipollino-marble/ · Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0