§ 15 Of the Stone From Istria92
There is moreover quarried in Istria a stone of a livid white, which very easily splits, and this is more frequently used than any other, not by the city of Venice alone, but by all the province of Romagna, for all works both of masonry and carving. It is worked with tools and instruments longer than those usually employed, and chiefly with certain little hammers that follow the cleavage of the stone, where it readily parts. A great quantity of this kind of stone was used by Messer Jacopo Sansovino, who built the Doric edifice of the Panattiera93 in Venice, and also that in the Tuscan style for the Zecca (mint) on the Piazza of San Marco.94 Thus they go on executing all their works for that city, doors, windows, chapels, and any other decorations that they find convenient to make, notwithstanding the fact that breccias and other kinds of stone could easily be conveyed from Verona, by means of the river Adige. Very few works made of these latter materials are to be seen, because of the general use of the Istrian stone, into which porphyry, serpentine and other sorts of breccias are often inlaid, resulting in compositions which are very ornamental. This stone is of the nature of the limestone called ‘alberese,’ not unlike that of our own districts, and as has been said it splits easily.