Why we use the terms “Calacatta” and “Bettogli”

With its thousand years of history, Carrara marble dates back to the Roman age where it was called marmo lunense. Over two thousand years of history led to commercial and linguistic changes. It should not be surprising that Carrara marble has undergone linguistic evolutions and developments over time like any other language.

If in Roman times in the known world Carrara marble was called marmo lunense in honour of the colony of Luni, today we can see evolutions of the commercial words related to marble. Let us take Calacatta, the most known Carrara marble, as an example.

Calacata or Calacatta?

Let’s start by saying that both versions are correct and refer to the same type of marble. Today, we tend to use the version with the double t: Calacatta. Without getting too technical, this version is probably the result of a development of the sound of the dialectal word occurred when it was transposed in Italian. Let’s not forget that most of Carrara marble names come from dialect. In particular, Carrara dialect, which has nothing to do with the Tuscan one, is characterized by a consonant distortion i.e. the tendency to reduce doubles. For this reason, Calacata became Calacatta.

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Other examples

Leafing through books on Carrara marble and the old maps it is possible to find many similar examples. Emanuele Repetti, the most famous Carrara geographer, in his well-known Historical physical geographical dictionary of Tuscany wrote “Monte Betogli”, whereas today we mainly use “Bettogli“. We can see another change in the word “Canal Grande” that became “Canalgrande” and “Fanti scritti” that today is “Fantiscritti”. Regarding doubles, as we have already mentioned, the change has its origin in Carrara dialect. More generally, these linguistic developments are the tangible sign that Carrara Marble has ancient origins and brings with it all the linguistic changes.