DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.42778#0249
PALACES AND HOUSES.
149
carried the joists and ceiling. Where the width of the atrium was
too great to allow of its being spanned by beams, columns were
placed at each angle of the impluvium to support them, and this
variety is described by Vitruvius as the tetrastyle atrium. In
houses of importance, where in consequence of the size and number
of rooms round the atrium more space was required, a large number
of columns carried the roof with the compluvium enclosure, and
this arrangement was known as the “ Corinthian atrium.”1
There was a fourth variety, known as the “ atrium displuviatum,”
where the roof sloped down outwards so that the rain was carried
to the outside, away from the compluvium. This sometimes neces-
sitated the employment of trough gutters, with rainwater pipes in
the angles of the atrium to carry off the rain. These, however,
Vitruvius says (VI, 3), “ are constantly in want of repair, for the
pipes which receive the water from the eaves being against the walls,
and not capable of taking at once the water which should be carried
off, it overflows from the check it meets and injures the woodwork
and walls in this sort of buildings.” A much better light, however,
he points out, was given to the atrium and the rooms round. A new
type of atrium has recently been discovered in a large fulling estab-
lishment in the Strada dell’ Abbondanza, with the opening in the
centre of a perfectly flat roof.
The “ atrium testudinatum ” (where there was no opening in the
roof) was found only in the smallest houses or where there was an
upper storey. In these cases light was obtained from an open
court beyond.
The rooms round the atrium were :—
a. Cubicula, or small sleeping rooms, generally set apart for
visitors or for the male portion of the family.
b. Alae, or wings, recesses for conversation or reading.
c. Tablinum, a large room facing the vestibule, always opening
into the atrium and sometimes into the peristyle or a portico beyond,
without any wall or separation. Curtains were probably drawn
across this room on either side, and in Herculaneum and Pompeii
bronze hooks have been found to which they may have been
suspended. This room contained the family archives, statues and
pictures.
d. Fauces, passages which admitted of passing from the public
1 The title had nothing to do with the Order, in Pompeii, for as often as not
the capitals were either Tuscan or Ionic.
149
carried the joists and ceiling. Where the width of the atrium was
too great to allow of its being spanned by beams, columns were
placed at each angle of the impluvium to support them, and this
variety is described by Vitruvius as the tetrastyle atrium. In
houses of importance, where in consequence of the size and number
of rooms round the atrium more space was required, a large number
of columns carried the roof with the compluvium enclosure, and
this arrangement was known as the “ Corinthian atrium.”1
There was a fourth variety, known as the “ atrium displuviatum,”
where the roof sloped down outwards so that the rain was carried
to the outside, away from the compluvium. This sometimes neces-
sitated the employment of trough gutters, with rainwater pipes in
the angles of the atrium to carry off the rain. These, however,
Vitruvius says (VI, 3), “ are constantly in want of repair, for the
pipes which receive the water from the eaves being against the walls,
and not capable of taking at once the water which should be carried
off, it overflows from the check it meets and injures the woodwork
and walls in this sort of buildings.” A much better light, however,
he points out, was given to the atrium and the rooms round. A new
type of atrium has recently been discovered in a large fulling estab-
lishment in the Strada dell’ Abbondanza, with the opening in the
centre of a perfectly flat roof.
The “ atrium testudinatum ” (where there was no opening in the
roof) was found only in the smallest houses or where there was an
upper storey. In these cases light was obtained from an open
court beyond.
The rooms round the atrium were :—
a. Cubicula, or small sleeping rooms, generally set apart for
visitors or for the male portion of the family.
b. Alae, or wings, recesses for conversation or reading.
c. Tablinum, a large room facing the vestibule, always opening
into the atrium and sometimes into the peristyle or a portico beyond,
without any wall or separation. Curtains were probably drawn
across this room on either side, and in Herculaneum and Pompeii
bronze hooks have been found to which they may have been
suspended. This room contained the family archives, statues and
pictures.
d. Fauces, passages which admitted of passing from the public
1 The title had nothing to do with the Order, in Pompeii, for as often as not
the capitals were either Tuscan or Ionic.