These Latin rustic crosses are 14 inches tall including the base. The Latin rustic crosses are made of durable bonded marble and have a finish that gives them the look of weathered wrought iron. Both sides of the Latin rustic crosses have a fleur de lis design on the end of each arm. The center of the Latin rustic crosses is a simple Latin cross. The upper three arms of these Latin rustic crosses are about half the length of the lower arm.
Cross Designs.
The forms given to crosses in art are variations of a few basic types. The Tau cross is T shaped and the Saint Andrew’s cross is x shaped. In the Latin cross a short horizontal arm is placed slightly below the top of the longer vertical arm. In the Greek cross the arms are of equal length, crossed at right angles at their centers. In architecture, the form of the cross has been used extensively and its use was especially widespread during the middle ages. The ground plan of most large churches was in the shape of a Latin or Greek cross. The cross was often used for ornament on buildings and for the design of monuments and memorials.
Cross designs were in use as emblems before the Christian era. The cross with a handle is common on Egyptian monuments as the symbol of immortality. The cross with equal arms and the cross with returned arms are found on prehistoric relics in Italy and elsewhere. The Spanish conquerors found the cross among the natives of Central America where it was a symbol of the god of rain.
Information on Marble.
Marble is any limestone that is hard enough to take polish. In the technical geological sense, it has been changed through the action of heat far below the earth’s surface. Limestone is made up of fragments of shells or irregular grains of calcium carbonate. But in marble it has been changed to a mass of crystals grown firmly together. Metamorphosis has made the marble more uniform in hardness and grain, so that it can be carved better than ordinary limestone. It has also made it harder and freed it from small cavities and pores, so that it takes a higher polish. This is why sculptors and architects prefer to work with marble. It is used for buildings, interiors and statues. The finest marble is white and called statuary marble. All marble is composed of crystals of calcite or dolomite, which when pure are perfectly white. Colored marble results from the presence of other minerals or small amounts of staining matter mixed with the calcite or dolomite. Black gray, pink, reddish, greenish and many kinds of mottled and banded marble are used in the designs of buildings and monuments. The color of red marble is due to tiny particles of hematite between calcite or dolomite crystals. Serpentine marbles are principally green and yellowish green silicates. Fossiliferous marble is limestone which is full of fossil shells. On polished surfaces of such marble the cross sections of the shells can be seen through the rock.
Anciently the finest buildings were made of either granite or marble. The Egyptians worked chiefly in granite. The Greeks were skillful in carving and found marble more suited to their needs. Their temples and arcades at Athens and Corinth stand as monuments to their skill and materials. The ancient Greeks used Pentelic marble from Mount Pentelicus, north of Athens, for their finest work. The Parthenon is built of the coarser Parian marble form the island of Paros. The Romans copied the forms of Greek sculpture and architecture and used marble with great skill.
The most famous quarries for any stone are the marble quarries at Carrara, Italy. Stone from them was used in Rome at the time of the Emperor Augustus. The finest varieties were discovered much later and were made famous by the great sculptors Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. In the United States, marble has been used for memorials since colonial days. Marble headstones to men who fell in the Revolutionary War have lasted longer than most other kinds. This stone has been a favorite in architecture from the Erie Customs House, erected in 1836, to the impressive building of the Supreme Court of the United States. The largest American marble quarry is in Vermont, others are in Tennessee, Missouri, New York, Texas and Maryland.