Cuneo Civic Museum - Cocciopesto Flooring

Cocciopesto flooring

At a depth of one metre below the current floor of the church, which approximately corresponds to the 15th-century internal floor, a cocciopesto flooring was discovered (a hydraulic mortar made from lime and crushed brick fragments, used as a waterproofing material).

Detail of the two phases of cocciopesto flooring seen in section

The excavation carried out in 1965 to install the heating system damaged this ancient floor but allowed us to identify, in cross-section, an even earlier paving phase; two different floors in cocciopesto and mortar, laid on a pebble foundation, can therefore be traced to two different phases in the life of the fourteenth-century place of worship.

Photo published courtesy of the Superintendency Archaeology, Fine Arts and Landscape for the provinces of Alessandria, Asti and Cuneo