Mechanical characteristics of some volcanic tuffs used in the buildings of ancient Rome

The great abundance of coherent volcanic tuffs throughout the Latium Region, the ease with which they can be quarried and worked, and their reasonable compression strength characteristics have made of this material a very popular one for construction purposes ever since ancient times. This paper is the first product of a research aimed at characterizing, from the geological, petrographic and technical points of view, the coherent volcanic tuffs used in the construction of historic buildings in Rome and Latium since the days of ancient Rome. After a short description of the technical characteristics of some of the most widely used coherent volcanic tuffs and after briefly mentioning some examples of how they are employed in the construction area, a detailed presentation is given in particular of the "Lapis Gabinus" type. This volcanic tuff, coming from the volcanic activity of the Albani Hills, was used to build the Tabularium, a historic building of ancient Rome.