A lathe used in stoneworking to rotate a workpiece while tools shape circular, cylindrical, baluster, columnar, or other rotationally symmetrical forms.
Tornio is the Italian word for lathe. The term appears alongside the contornatrice in the marble-school and workshop material indexed by Le voci del marmo.
A stone lathe rotates the workpiece so cutting or abrasive tools can generate forms around a central axis.
Etymology
From Italian tornire, “to turn or shape on a lathe.”
Sculptor Notes
The lathe is fundamentally an axial machine. It is ideal when the design belongs to rotation—columns, balusters, bases, urns, and repeated circular profiles—but less useful once the sculptural form leaves axial symmetry.
References
https://levocidelmarmo.sns.it/lista_times.php