DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.16632#0151
The Roman Empire 123
a fine brim and a fountain. Before the left side of the portico is a broad terrace which
also opened on a garden not yet dug up. At the end of each portico is a room, perhaps
made for the view, or as a pergola, such as we see on the pictures at Boscoreale and in
many Pompeian frescoes. The atriums, demanded by Vitruvius for a villa suburbana,
are not here, and at that time they were very old-fashioned. Indeed the small tasteful
villa at Boscoreale, which is before all things a villa rustica with rooms for the owners,
has no atrium, but the rooms are grouped round a great peristyle, which, judging by
its paintings and the four little fountains in the corners, will have also had a bright
garden. Pliny speaks of an atrium in his Tusci as "in the fashion of our fathers." In the
FIG. 90. A VILLA WITH GARDEN DECORATION—A FRESCO FROM BOSCOREALE
suburbs it was really a half-open room built for pleasure, like the one at the African villa
at Uthina, where a very large peristyle had five atriums, each the centre of a group of
rooms. At that time far more light was needed than an atrium could give, and the first
intention of an atrium, to supply water, was nothing now to the Romans; for wherever
there were villa centres in imperial times, irrigation was one of the chief features, and the
gardens were enlivened with fountains, water-stairways, and all sorts of devices. How
far water-organs, so beloved in Renaissance days, were used to adorn and enliven the
gardens in ancient times, we cannot say, but that they were known and very much liked
we can tell from a host of authorities.
In imperial times the great contrast between divers ways of living was always be-
coming more marked. While the circle of suburban villas was getting more and more
extended, and the public places grander, the homes inside the town were contracted and
narrow. The barracks, of a height that has never been exceeded except in the modern
towns of America, were surrounded by streets on all four sides, and the courts must
a fine brim and a fountain. Before the left side of the portico is a broad terrace which
also opened on a garden not yet dug up. At the end of each portico is a room, perhaps
made for the view, or as a pergola, such as we see on the pictures at Boscoreale and in
many Pompeian frescoes. The atriums, demanded by Vitruvius for a villa suburbana,
are not here, and at that time they were very old-fashioned. Indeed the small tasteful
villa at Boscoreale, which is before all things a villa rustica with rooms for the owners,
has no atrium, but the rooms are grouped round a great peristyle, which, judging by
its paintings and the four little fountains in the corners, will have also had a bright
garden. Pliny speaks of an atrium in his Tusci as "in the fashion of our fathers." In the
FIG. 90. A VILLA WITH GARDEN DECORATION—A FRESCO FROM BOSCOREALE
suburbs it was really a half-open room built for pleasure, like the one at the African villa
at Uthina, where a very large peristyle had five atriums, each the centre of a group of
rooms. At that time far more light was needed than an atrium could give, and the first
intention of an atrium, to supply water, was nothing now to the Romans; for wherever
there were villa centres in imperial times, irrigation was one of the chief features, and the
gardens were enlivened with fountains, water-stairways, and all sorts of devices. How
far water-organs, so beloved in Renaissance days, were used to adorn and enliven the
gardens in ancient times, we cannot say, but that they were known and very much liked
we can tell from a host of authorities.
In imperial times the great contrast between divers ways of living was always be-
coming more marked. While the circle of suburban villas was getting more and more
extended, and the public places grander, the homes inside the town were contracted and
narrow. The barracks, of a height that has never been exceeded except in the modern
towns of America, were surrounded by streets on all four sides, and the courts must