However, he found other ways of signing. In the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo imposed his own features on St. Bartholomew, who was flayed alive, possibly as a joke or a complaint about the physically grueling project. All this creamy white marble comes from one place, Carrara, Italy. Several years ago, a student artist at the Academy of Art University told me one cubic foot costs $1,000.
Before you start criticizing mining here or abroad for environmental reasons, consider this: these marble mines, at elevation 3,000′, give employment to about 6,000 men and boys and are the sole support of a population of nearly 75,000 in this part of Italy. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-marble-quarries-of-carrara/