By the start of the eighteenth century inlaid scagliola had spread far beyond Emilia and there were scagliolists at work in several parts of central and northern Italy and beyond.

It is difficult to quantify the extent of Carpi’s influence over such a large area.  The historians who were so active in asserting the reputations of the Carpi scagliolists never recorded the activities of other centres of production.  That they existed can be seen from some of the earliest altar fronts in Lombardy and Romagna, which bear little or no resemblance to those of the Carpi masters.

On the other hand, Carpi was important.  Those of its scagliolists who relocated to new areas took their knowledge and experience with them, and craftsmen and artists from other regions who had been invited to work in the Duchy of Modena were quick to appreciate the new technique and its potential, for which they found a ready and expanding market.  The influence of the Counter Reformation was being felt throughout Catholic Europe, and the building and renovation of churches continued throughout the seventeenth and much of the eighteenth centuries.

Carlo Borromeo, the influential Cardinal Archbishop of Milan (r. 1564 – 1584, canonised 1610), had initiated a major programme of church building and restoration in an area which included Piedmont, Lombardy, parts of Switzerland, the Tirol, Trentino and Le Marche.  In his book Istruziones Fabricae et Suppellectilis Ecclesiasticae (written 1572-77) he gave specific instructions on all aspects of church design and furnishings, and these included a stipulation  that altar fronts should be permanent fixtures made not from wood but stone.  With the Catholic Church taking a relaxed view on the use of the  aesthetically and economically attractive Marmor dei Poveri to beautify its places of worship, it is not surprising that significant numbers of scagliola altar fronts appeared in these areas over the next two centuries.