Abstract
The PietraAlberese is a marly limestone belonging to the Ligurian series (Monte Morello Formation of Eocene age). It is a material rarely mentioned in the historical Florentine architecture because the Pietraforte, the stone of the Medieval Florence and the Pietra Serena, the stone of the Renaissance, were the main lithotypes commonly used in those periods. Nevertheless, the Pietra Alberese has been widely utilized to build the town, because it is the only limestone cropping out in this part of Tuscany allowing the production of lime. In Prato and Pistoia, the Pietra Alberese was also used as stone (e.g., ashlars) in the structures and façades of many public and religious buildings. In this work, the geological setting and a mineralogical, petrographic and physical characterization of Pietra Alberese used as building stone are proposed together with a discussion about its durability. Moreover, the different compositional and macroscopic characteristics of two lithotypes (namely the sasso alberese and sasso porcino) utilized to produce the two types of lime used in the local traditional architecture (calcina dolce and calcina forte) are highlighted.
Highlights
IntroductionIn the northern Apennines and in Tuscany, traditionally the term Alberese has been used to mean all the marly limestones belonging to different successions of the Ligurian tectonic units (see Section 1.2)
The different compositional and macroscopic characteristics of two lithotypes utilized to produce the two types of lime used in the local traditional architecture are highlighted
The analysed samples were gathered in the two varieties sasso alberese and sasso porcino, which show different macroscopic characteristics: the sasso alberese variety includes samples which are light hazel/hazel in color with a red ochre patina in the exposed surface, a smooth fresh cut surface and a conchoidal fracture; the sasso porcino variety includes samples with a whitish bluish alteration of color of the surface, a grey/dark grey color of fresh cut surface, a rough shape, and a scaly fracture
Summary
In the northern Apennines and in Tuscany, traditionally the term Alberese has been used to mean all the marly limestones belonging to different successions of the Ligurian tectonic units (see Section 1.2). The term Alberese stone was generally used in the lithological sense, without having a clear stratigraphic significance. These ambiguities have been resolved in the last decades with the attribution of the Alberese stone ss. To the Monte Morello Formation (Eocene age) belonging to the Morello tectonic. The name “Monte Morello Formation” comes from the locality close to Florence where this marly formation shows the typical outcrop. The Tuscan naturalist Targioni Tozzetti [1] in his Relazioni d’alcuni viaggi fatti in diverse parti della
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