In ancient Greek and

Roman architecture Ancient Roman architecture adopted the external language of classical Greek architecture for the purposes of the ancient Romans, but was different from Greek buildings, becoming a new architectural style. The two styles are often considered on ...

, a peristyle (; from Greek ) is a continuous porch formed by a row of columns surrounding the perimeter of a building or a courtyard. Tetrastoön ( grc, τετράστῳον or τετράστοον, lit=four arcades, label=none) is a rarely used archaic term for this feature. The peristyle in a Greek temple is a peristasis (). In the Christian ecclesiastical architecture that developed from the Roman

basilica In Ancient Roman architecture, a basilica is a large public building with multiple functions, typically built alongside the town's forum. The basilica was in the Latin West equivalent to a stoa in the Greek East. The building gave its nam ...

, a courtyard peristyle and its garden came to be known as a

cloister A cloister (from Latin ''claustrum'', "enclosure") is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth. The attachment of a cloister to a cathedral or church, commonly against ...

Etymology

The Greek word περίστυλον ''perístylon'' is composed of περί ''peri'', "around" or "surrounded", and στῦλος ''stylos'', "column" or "pillar", together meaning "surrounded by columns/pillars". It was Latinised into synonyms ''peristylum'' and ''peristylium''.

In Roman architecture

In rural settings, a wealthy Roman could surround a

villa A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became ...

with

terraced gardens In gardening, a terrace is an element where a raised flat paved or gravelled section overlooks a prospect. A raised terrace keeps a house dry and provides a transition between the hardscape and the softscape. History ;Persia Since a level si ...

; within the city, Romans created their gardens inside the ''

domus In Ancient Rome, the ''domus'' (plural ''domūs'', genitive ''domūs'' or ''domī'') was the type of town house occupied by the upper classes and some wealthy freedmen during the Republican and Imperial eras. It was found in almost all the ma ...

''. The ''peristylium'' was an open courtyard within the house; the columns or square pillars surrounding the garden supported a shady roofed

portico A portico is a porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by columns or enclosed by walls. This idea was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cul ...

whose inner walls were often embellished with elaborate wall paintings of landscapes and ''

trompe-l'œil ''Trompe-l'œil'' ( , ; ) is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. ''Trompe l'oeil'', which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into ...

'' architecture. Sometimes the '' lararium'', a shrine for the Lares, the gods of the household, was located in this portico, or it might be found in the atrium. The courtyard might contain flowers and shrubs, fountains, benches, sculptures and even fish ponds. Romans devoted as large a space to the peristyle as site constraints permitted; in the grandest development of the urban peristyle house, as it evolved in

Roman North Africa Africa Proconsularis was a Roman province on the northern African coast that was established in 146 BC following the defeat of Carthage in the Third Punic War. It roughly comprised the territory of present-day Tunisia, the northeast of Algeri ...

, often even one range of the

was eliminated for a larger open space. The end of the Roman ''domus'' is one mark of the extinction of

late antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English h ...

(the Late Classical culture): "the disappearance of the Roman peristyle house marks the end of the ancient world and its way of life," remarked Simon P. Ellis. "No new peristyle houses were built after A.D. 550." Noting that as houses and villas were increasingly abandoned in the fifth century, a few palatial structures were expanded and enriched, as power and classical culture became concentrated in a narrowing class, and public life withdrew to the

, or audience chamber, of the magnate. In the

Eastern Roman empire The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantino ...

, late antiquity lingered longer: Ellis identified the latest-known peristyle house built from scratch as the Villa of the Falconer at Argos, dating from the style of its floor

mosaic A mosaic is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and were particularly pop ...

s to about 530–550. Existing houses in many cases were subdivided to accommodate a larger and less elite population in a warren of small spaces, and columned porticoes were enclosed in small cubicles, as at the House of Hesychius at Cyrene.Noted by Ellis p. 567.

Other uses

Although

ancient Egyptian architecture Spanning over three thousand years, ancient Egypt was not one stable civilization but in constant change and upheaval, commonly split into periods by historians. Likewise, ancient Egyptian architecture is not one style, but a set of styles diff ...

predates Greek and Roman architecture, historians frequently use the Greek term ''peristyle'' to describe similar, earlier structures in ancient Egyptian palace architecture and in

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is ...

ine houses known as liwan houses.

Notes

External links

*
Barbara McManus, "The Peristylium"
a reconstruction of a peristyle {{Authority control Types of garden Columns and entablature Colonnades *Peristyle Landscape design history

Etymology

In Roman architecture

Other uses

See also

Notes

External links