Corsi Collection of Decorative Stones

view of stone 120

Corsi 120, approx. 145 x 73 x 40 mm, © Oxford University Museum of Natural History

OUMNH Number: 120  
Name and quarry location: Fior di pesco (fior di persico), from Eretria, Euboea, Central Greece  
Geological description: Triassic tectonite. A sheared calcite marble breccia with late-stage calcite-filled veins and fractures.  
Comments: This stone, named for its resemblance to peach blossom, was correctly identified by Corsi. The colour of the stone, pink tending to brown, and the heavily deformed texture with its streaky diffuse markings, are distinctive features of fior de pesco from Eretria in Greece, although as Corsi's samples show, the proportion of pink to white colouring varies greatly. Worked in antiquity, the stone was first brought to Rome around the beginning of the first century AD. Today, a darker coloured stone is quarried and traded as Eretria, or Eretria red.  
References: Borghini (1997) 212; Corsi (1845) 100-101; Higgins (1996) 85-86; Lazzarini (2002b); Lazzarini (2002c) 260-261; Mielsch (1985) 57-58, taf.16; Price (2007) 128  
Further information:
 


Corsi's classification: Class 1. Marbles; Section 2. Veined marbles; Species 3 [= 4]. Fior di Persico  
Corsi's text: 51.3 Marmo fior di persico. Marmo Molossio. Marmor Molossium, dal Epiro oggi Albania inferiore, e precisamente dal luogo che abitavano i Molossi.  

Full entry in English

Enter some search terms
Show results as:

search tips

Searches the database for all stone records containing the words you enter. To search for a text string, put it between quotation marks. To search for stone records that don't contain a word, put a minus sign in front of it.

For example, entering: granite "coarse-grained" -Egypt will find all the coarse-grained granites that do not come from Egypt.

Terms of three characters or less have not been indexed.