What is Venetian Plaster?
Venetian plaster has many names, a few include the following – marble plaster, stucco plaster, polished plaster, and marmorino . These finishes date back over five thousand years ago and believe it or not starts in the ocean!
When marine life died the remains rested at the bottom of the seabed, and over thousands of years, together with heat and changes in the atmosphere, they formed rock what we call limestone or calcium carbonate (as its other term), which was then used (with the use of heat) to create a lime putty. This is Venetian plaster we know today and use.
Archaeologists have found sites that used Venetian plaster as far back as the 1st century AD in Mesopotamia (known to us now as the middle east) including turkey, Ian and Iraq. Also on the small island of Malta situated in Europe it is known that this island had the most man-made structures in the world and venetian plaster played a big part in creating them.
Another place where venetian plaster was popular was the Roman empire as they loved to imitate natural stone in big building’s such as cathedrals and villas.
Venetian plaster had a revamp in the mid 1900’s with the help of an architect from Italy called Carlo Scarpa, he started to use venetian plaster in his design’s and also started to experiment by changing the application so making it easier to apply and only using 3 coats instead of 7 saving a lot of time.
What is Venetian Plaster Made Out Of?
Venetian plaster is made from lime putty, which was made from limestone, the process to create lime putty is heating up the limestone in large furnaces and melted down, then it is mixed with water to make the putty. Once it is applied to the walls and dries it becomes as hard as before it was melted down taking on the form of the limestone again.
Using lime putty it makes it naturally eco friendly, hypoallergenic and mould resistant! Which is a winner all round for using in buildings and homes.
There are other ingredients (aggregates) that are added to the lime putty depending on the product you chose.
A lot of Venetian plaster (polished plaster, marble plaster or grassello which is another term used) use aggregates like marble dust to help create the shine that is such a popular finish with the Uk at the moment, you can achieve this finish with our riflesso polished plaster. Usually polished plaster has around 40% added marble dust to the lime putty to enhance the shine.
