Bardiglio Imperiale
The name of this family comes from the diminutive of the Spanish word “pardo”, meaning the dark grey color referring to a cloudy sky. The bardiglio family is one of the most typical of the Apuan Alps and is characterized by a very compact structure with fairly even dark grey color of the groundmass. Dark grey vein patterns may be present or in the nuvolato variety typical of Carrara irregular but oriented whitish-colored shades. The imperial variety typical of Garfagnana has an even grey-blue groundmass with no marked veins.
Traditionally this variety is mainly cut according against the grain (the hard way), or perpendicular to the grain (the easy way). Bardiglio varie¬ties are found to a varying extent in all the quarry sites throughout the Apuan Alps.