Alabastro di Busca is an Italian marble from Busca, in the Piedmont region. It was first extracted around 1500, until 1963, when the quarry was definitively closed.
It was a precious marble exported all over Europe during the Renaissance and afterward. It was mostly used for making altar balustrades in churches, like the one in the Santissima Trinità in Busca and the Superga basilica in Turin. It was also used to decorate private interiors, most notably fireplaces like the ones on the third floor in the Bonaparte House in Ajaccio, and the one that was in the Meeting Room in Maurice Fenaille's sanatorium, in the Aveyron Department of France. It is a very decorative marble with warm shades of ochers and oranges faded into grays.
