Page 1 |  Page 2 |  Page 3 |  Page 4 |  Page 5 |  Page 6 |  Page 7 |  Page 8 |  Page 9 |  Page 10

Sett paving Sett pavements are obtained by setting cube or parallelepiped shaped stones -either alonside opus incertum ("crazy paving") or in complex geometrical patterns - Fig. 19 - Porphyry sett paving with cubetti, in overlapping arc pattern. Maculan winery in Breganze, Italy. in a bed and sealing the joints, using a variety of methods. Europe saw the first road pavings made using medium and small shaped cobblestones specifically produced for that purpose in the mid 19th century. In Italy, perhaps the most ancient application of this method dates back to the 18th century when in Rome quadruccio or sanpietrino cobblestones (a square head 9.5 cm per side and 18 cm in height) were laid. These stones were taken from the basaltic rock quarries of the Colli Albani area near Rome, although after 1880 this material was mostly replaced by porphyry.

Fig. 20 - Porphyry sett paving with cubetti, in overlapping arc pattern in a covered passageway. The porphyry elements used for sett pavements are produced by the mechanical machining of rock slabs. According to the geometry of the resulting building elements, they take on different names and accordingly are used for various patterns in the construction of even surfaces with a wide range of different geometrical patterns and surface finishings. The porphyry elements used today for sett pavements are: "cubetti" (cubed cobbles), "binderi" (bricks) and "smolleri" (narrow bricks).Cubetti are cube shaped cobbles, with non-orthogonal faces, split mechanically from porphyry slabs. The traffic surface is left natural cleft, as it comes from the quarry, and the sides may be not perfectly in square. Thanks to theirshape, cubetti are quite versatile and may be laid in a large variety of patterns, ranging from the more traditional - overlapping arcs (Fig. 19-20), rows, peacock tails (Fig. 21), concentric circles - to so-called "designer" layouts,which may include the above-men-tioned patterns as well as a wide variety of other geometric solutions. These patterns may combine diverse types of stone too, depending on the choices the designer makes to achieve his objectives. The rather irregular shape of porphyry cubetti can make setting a challenge and calls for attention to the choice of materials to be laid, and their sequence.