The building stones of the ancient centre of Naples (Italy): the Piperno from Phlegrean Fields. Contributions to the knowledge of features of a long-time used stone

Piperno, a Late Quaternary magmatic rock cropping out on the eastern side of the Campi Flegrei (Italy), is probably the most important building stone of Naples, used over a time-span from at least the Roman age until the beginning of the 20th century. Despite its wide diffusion in the monumental architecture of Naples, very little is known about this rock, as regards its technical features, as well as the geological aspects. This paper aims at providing a first overall contribution towards a rediscovery of this long-time-used material, in view of careful restoration works, which nowadays at Naples only take into account the proper geological features of the stone in a few peculiar cases. Thus, it seems of extreme importance to understand the basic parameters of Piperno and, above all, its response to weathering agents. Main mineralogical, petrographical and engineering-geological properties are presented here for the first time, with specific reference to two sampling areas, located at Pianura and Soccavo, in the western sector of the Neapolitan urban area. As far as many of its physico-mechanical features are concerned, Piperno extends over a wide range of values, which allow different varieties of the rock to be identified. This preliminary result is seemingly in accordance with data from old historical literature, which stated the existence of six horizons in the Piperno formation.