ABSTRACT
Starting from the Middle Age and until the second half of the XIX century, many buildings in Cremona are characterized by the almost exclusive use of earthen mortars coupled with regular clay bricks. During the survey campaign on Palazzo Raimondi in Cremona, some mechanical in situ tests have been made on the walls of the basement and of ground floor in order to investigate the mechanical behavior of this earthen-mortar masonry and to compare it with regular lime-mortar brick walls. Starting from the Middle Age, at least since the XIV century, and until the second half of the XIX century, many buildings in Cremona were characterized by the almost exclusive use of earthen mortars coupled with regular clay bricks. Earthen mortar masonry can show a generally good compression behavior, with important plastic deformations that appear to be not accompanied by lateral expansion, as occurs usually in lime- mortar brick masonry, when cracking take place.
