Again thanks to the Bottaccioli family, thanks to the availability of Giovanna, daughter of Giovanni and Renata, we were also able to  photograph the 1893 hammer, which had belonged to Giuseppe Medici and then to his son Orlando, known as Guido. They were important tools, prepared precisely for the processing of stones and were passed from father to son. The gesture of hitting the chisel to model the yellow sandstone and the more gray one, that is the pietra serena, bent the metal giving us the sense of fatigue, blow by blow, which allowed their achievements.  This instrument was the "mallet" or "stonecutter's mallet": it was composed of an untempered iron head with two quadrangular mouths and a central eye for grafting the wooden handle.

The work of the stonemason in our areas probably did not have the same distinction that existed in other parts of Italy between real "quarrymen" and "stonecutters",  the type of possible works and the realizations visible in the area. Our "stonecutters" moved among the  roles  of laborers, workers for structural work, craftsmen for the precise realization of architraves or other simple decorative elements and,  if necessary, they had to respond to requests for skill and sensitivity almost from  artists for  the realization  of more complex decorations. Surely the "bulk" of the activity was aimed at the construction of steps, sidewalks, building finishing stones, etc ..., and it was a tiring job: sitting on the ground with the constant risk of being hit by a splinter in the eye. Isotta Bottaccioli remembers the immediate and peremptory warnings to go away for this reason that they received as children when they got too close to the "stonecutters".  Angeletti Angelo, in his book “ If only the Stones are left to speak ”, where he tells  his childhood and the life he took to  Montemigiano, also reports the child's games they played at Niccone: " Every now and then, interrupting the game, I would start looking at the stonecutters who, sitting on the ground, beat and beat with strange hammers on large stones and hit their hands and their faces thick with dust and sweat, but above all their eyes amazed me, because they reminded me of those of the rabbits my grandmother raised, so red they looked like burning coals. "(Cit. P.41).

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The precise indications of Giovanni Bottaccioli should be confirmed at least by working documents or indications of payments, if any, especially as regards the external columns of Santa Maria della Reggia. We are left with the existing decorative / architectural and the material sources. As for the church of Maria SS. del Carmine di Niccone, the work of the last "survivors" of this workforce is also visible in the decorative element of the portal of the facade, now actually completely covered with ivy. There is very little news on the net but on a site of the "Catholic Church" dedicated to the description of the churches in the various Dioceses you can read:  " entrance portal consisting of an opening surmounted by a round arch surrounded by a large molded frame ". This  At first glance, the "entrance portal" appears to be in "pietra serena" even if it is not specified on the site ... as certainly are the entrance and interior steps;  instead, "Lisciano Niccone" rather than "Niccone" is indicated as the location of the church. The church, as reported on an internal plaque, was consecrated in 1947 by Bishop Cipriani and commissioned by Don Pericle Tirimagni. Cement, the building material it replaced  the stone was used to structure " two large concrete parallelepipeds protruding from the plane that houses the openings and the portal. These projections that occupy the facade for its entire height are decorated with a series of horizontal bands that are repeated from the base to at the peak ". Isotta Bottaccioli has a clear memory of Orlando Medici, known as "Guido", who worked incessantly to create the external "decoration" of the forepart.