The main objective of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of indirect methods to estimate the uniaxial compressive strength (UCS) of building stones. For this purpose, the results of the UCS test on five types of stones from southern Italy, one igneous and four sedimentary stones are firstly correlated with the corresponding results from Schmidt hammer, point load and UCS direct tests. Then, derived correlations are compared with the equations obtained by different researchers in the mechanical stone characterization.