This research aims to explore our relationship with the past through the traces left by the extraction and use of marble and travertine in Italy, materials that have had a disruptive impact on the collective consciousness of this nation. Their historical influence is not limited to the physical and naturalistic level but is complex and layered, contributing to the construction of the Italian urban, architectural and naturalistic landscape, assuming a central role in the history of art and national identity. Their use has often been shaped by ideological intentions, serving as tools to materialise worldviews, from the vestiges of ancient Rome, imbued with power and refinement, to the grandiose constructions of the Fascist period. The first use of marble in a major architectural work can be found as early as the Roman Empire and also represents its first use for propaganda purposes. Quintus Caecilius Metellus Macedonicus, returning victorious from the last Macedonian war, imported Pentelic marble from Greece to be used in the construction of the Temple of Jupiter Stator, marking the very first use of precious stones in public architecture as a representation of a nation's greatness. The second major example of the propagandistic use of marble and travertine can be seen in the twenty years of Fascism. The dictator Mussolini began to evoke the myth of Rome, not only as a symbol of the past, but as a myth projected into the future. This transformation marked a fundamental shift in fascist ideology, with Rome becoming the central reference point for the construction of the “new Italy”, through a creative reinterpretation that adapted the models of the past to the needs and ambitions of the present. Mussolini's implementation of this plan for a new Romanity was a complex and multifaceted process, which found its initial three-dimensionality in the rationalist architectural movement and its definitive form in Marcello Piacentini's monumentalism. This dual historical use highlights the memories left by these materials, describing part of the complex phenomenon of the Italian landscape. Starting from the morphology of the areas where these stones are quarried and their widespread use in the two aforementioned eras, we see how marble and travertine have taken on the role of silent witnesses to different eras and ideologies, becoming protagonists in the narration of human events, political ambitions and cultural transformations in Italy.