Stone Masonry with Brick Stripe Courses: Study on a Historical Building Technique Diffused in Brianza District

Abstract

The paper presents a research on a masonry building typology, formed by pebbles stones with brick courses, well known and spread in a wide area in Northern Italy, but never studied in depth. The sample of buildings selected for this work is located in Vimercate area, near Milan, where it has been possible to lay out a diachronic scheme of the geometrical features characterizing the listed masonry: dimensions of component materials, distance between the courses, etc. The studied sample included different buildings typologies, like churches, civil houses, palaces and villas, realized with brick stripes and pebble stones. Crossing historical information coming from different authors with the surveyed textures, a relationship between this technique and its mechanical characteristics was investigated. Therefore, it has been possible to observe the trends of the technique, referring to an optimal ratio between the thickness of the wall and the distance among brick stripes, as well some archaeometric data on the production and supply of bricks in the area through time.