QR4 THE WORK OF THE STONEWORKER
The stone to be used in the construction of a building is procured before construction and found in outcrops of the mountain formation (mother rock) and also in the clearing phases of the land or already cultivated or transformed for the first time into cultivated land; the practice of reusing the materials (stone and wood) of demolished buildings should not be forgotten, to be kept in mind in the historical reading of a building.
The blocks thus extracted are, depending on their use, reduced in size, on site, by means of metal wedges embedded in the stone, an operation carried out by the quarryman. Once the construction site has been opened for the building, the bricklayer, by weaving the stone of the load-bearing structure, rectifies the stones to the bare minimum necessary for the structural functionality, and can proceed in this way until the building is completed. If it is decided to refine some architectural parts to improve their functionality or aesthetic prominence, the necessary stones pass, before being put into operation by the bricklayer, into the hands of the stonemason who will form the new elements and refine the surfaces with his various tools.
A further figure that can be employed, in particular cases, is that of the sculptor, who places himself at a higher level of skill than the previous ones: he carves the stone bringing it almost to life with representations that range from floral to animal, even reaching human representations. In our agrarian context, the most common sculptural works are the sacred icons that we find in the majesties along the roads and in the fountains.
Following the progress of the construction phases, the last worker called to intervene is the "pianar" that crowns the building covering it with a mantle of sandstone slabs, called in various and innumerable ways depending on the location: piani, piagne, ciappe, piastre, from which pianaro, ciapparo, paranèin, cuatèn, to limit ourselves to a strictly Apennine context.