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Where Artistry Begins
Venetian plaster is lime and marble, laid by hand in thin coats and polished until it shines like stone. It is one of the oldest wall finishes in the world. The recipe was written down in ancient Rome, perfected on the palaces of Venice, and is still trowelled the same way today, including by us.
People have built with lime plaster for thousands of years. At ’Ain Ghazal in Jordan, statues modelled in lime plaster over reed frames date to around 7200 BC.
In the first century BC the Roman architect Vitruvius told plasterers to lay at least three coats of sand and lime, then three coats of powdered marble, each one finer than the last. Polished well, he wrote, the wall would reflect a clear image of the person looking at it. That is still the principle of Venetian plaster today.
The first known written contract for marmorino work dates from 1473, with the nuns of Santa Chiara on Murano. From the late 1400s marmorino became a mark of Venetian Renaissance building, on palace fronts along the Grand Canal and on interior walls across the city.
In the 1500s Andrea Palladio built his villas from brick and covered them in plaster, so humble walls read as noble stone. Marmorino is found at Villa Foscari at Malcontenta, Villa Barbaro at Maser and Villa La Rotonda near Vicenza, and in Venice on the Redentore, San Giorgio Maggiore, the Loggetta in St Mark’s Square and the Procuratie Nuove.
Marmorino was at its most widespread in the 1600s and 1700s across the Veneto. The final coat was sealed with wax, or with white soap dissolved in warm water and worked into the surface while it was being polished.
As labour grew more expensive in the 1800s the craft fell away. In the twentieth century the Venetian architect Carlo Scarpa brought it back to modern architecture, and his redesign of the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice, from 1959 to 1963, still has ceilings finished in coloured stucco.
The same lime and marble finishes are now known by many names, Venetian plaster, polished plaster, stucco veneziano and marmorino, and they are back in homes, hotels and restaurants across the world.
Venice stands on timber piles driven into the mud of the lagoon, and most of its buildings are brick. Marmorino gave those brick walls the look of stone. The Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia describes it as a device to make a building read as stone, and it became the usual finish for interior walls across the city and for many palace fronts.
Lime plaster in which marble powder takes the place of sand. It can be left matt and stone like or closed and burnished to a soft sheen. See our marmorino.
The finest lime and marble, laid in several very thin coats and polished hard with a steel trowel, then sealed with soap or wax for a glassy, marble like depth. Often called stucco lustro. See our polished plaster.
Lime and marble laid to imitate travertine stone, with its natural pits and veins. See our travertino.
Real Venetian plaster has not changed much since Vitruvius. Slaked lime putty, known in Italy as grassello, is mixed with graded marble dust. It goes onto a prepared wall in thin layers, each one pressed and burnished with a steel trowel, and the final coat is polished and sealed. There is no roller and no spray. The depth comes from the layers and the hand that lays them, which is why no two walls are ever exactly alike. We explain the difference between the real thing and imitations in Venetian plaster paint vs real lime plaster.
Palace fronts on the Grand Canal, the Redentore and San Giorgio Maggiore, and Carlo Scarpa’s rooms at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia.
Palladio’s villas, including La Rotonda near Vicenza and Villa Barbaro at Maser, part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1994.
The same finish, made the same way, on your own walls. See our Venetian plastering service or buy Venetian plaster for your own project.
We supply real lime Venetian plaster, machine tinted to any of 1,950 NCS colours, we install it, and we teach it. Choose a finish from polished plaster, marmorino and travertino to limewash and tadelakt, see the colours, or learn the craft yourself on a Venetian plastering course.
The method goes back to ancient Rome, where Vitruvius described plaster made from lime and powdered marble. It takes its name from Venice, where marmorino was used on palaces and churches from the late 1400s and spread across the Veneto.
The lime and marble method was written down in the first century BC. The first known contract for marmorino work in Venice dates from 1473.
Because Venice made it famous. The city’s brick buildings were finished in marmorino so they read as stone, and the finish became part of the look of Venice and of Palladio’s villas nearby.
Real Venetian plaster is lime mixed with marble dust, so there is genuine marble in it, but it is a plaster, laid by hand in thin coats rather than cut from stone. Read more in polished plaster vs marble.
Both are lime and marble. Marmorino uses a coarser marble grain and is often left matt or softly burnished, while polished plaster uses the finest grain and is polished to a high shine. See marmorino vs polished plaster.
Authentic Venetian plaster, machine-tinted to your colour and made for each order. Materials, installation and master-led training, nationwide and international, since 2021.
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