DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.61617#0110
72
POMPEII
higher than the corridor. Above the entablature is a low wall
on which there is a second row of columns ; these carry the
main roof and form a clerestory, the light being admitted
through the intercolumniations.
The main hall and the corridor were devoted to trade; the
dealers perhaps occupied the former, while in the latter the
throng of purchasers and idlers moved freely about. The place
set aside for the administration of justice, the tribunal, was
ordinarily an apse projecting from the rear end. In our Basil-
ica, however, —- and in some others as well, — it was a small
oblong elevated room back of the central hall, toward which it
opened in its whole length.
This ideal plan would answer very well for that of the early
Christian basilicas, excepting in one respect; instead of a cor-
ridor on all four sides they have only aisles parallel with the
nave, an arrangement which had already been adopted in some
basilicas designed for markets. The Christian basilicas would
give us a still truer idea of the arrangement and lighting of the
pagan prototype if in most cases a part of the numerous win-
dows had not been walled up, thus producing a dimness in keep-
ing with a religious but not a secular edifice.
In pagan structures the ideal plan was by no means strictly
followed. Vitruvius himself at Fano, and the architects of
other basilicas the remains of which have been discovered, did
not hesitate to depart from it. So the Basilica at Pompeii, as
we shall see, presents a modification of the general plan in an
important particular, the admission of light; and this deviation
was carried out with finer artistic feeling than was displayed by
Vitruvius in his building.
Our Basilica is undoubtedly of later date than the Basilica
Porcia, but the Pompeians, who at the time when it was built
were pupils of the Greeks in matters of art, found their model
not in Rome but in a Greek city, perhaps Naples.
Five entrances, separated by tufa pillars, lead from the colon-
nade of the Forum into the east end of the basilica. First comes
a narrow entrance court (<2), extending across the entire build-
ing and open to the sky. On the walls, as also on the outside
of the building, are remains of a simple stucco decoration;
POMPEII
higher than the corridor. Above the entablature is a low wall
on which there is a second row of columns ; these carry the
main roof and form a clerestory, the light being admitted
through the intercolumniations.
The main hall and the corridor were devoted to trade; the
dealers perhaps occupied the former, while in the latter the
throng of purchasers and idlers moved freely about. The place
set aside for the administration of justice, the tribunal, was
ordinarily an apse projecting from the rear end. In our Basil-
ica, however, —- and in some others as well, — it was a small
oblong elevated room back of the central hall, toward which it
opened in its whole length.
This ideal plan would answer very well for that of the early
Christian basilicas, excepting in one respect; instead of a cor-
ridor on all four sides they have only aisles parallel with the
nave, an arrangement which had already been adopted in some
basilicas designed for markets. The Christian basilicas would
give us a still truer idea of the arrangement and lighting of the
pagan prototype if in most cases a part of the numerous win-
dows had not been walled up, thus producing a dimness in keep-
ing with a religious but not a secular edifice.
In pagan structures the ideal plan was by no means strictly
followed. Vitruvius himself at Fano, and the architects of
other basilicas the remains of which have been discovered, did
not hesitate to depart from it. So the Basilica at Pompeii, as
we shall see, presents a modification of the general plan in an
important particular, the admission of light; and this deviation
was carried out with finer artistic feeling than was displayed by
Vitruvius in his building.
Our Basilica is undoubtedly of later date than the Basilica
Porcia, but the Pompeians, who at the time when it was built
were pupils of the Greeks in matters of art, found their model
not in Rome but in a Greek city, perhaps Naples.
Five entrances, separated by tufa pillars, lead from the colon-
nade of the Forum into the east end of the basilica. First comes
a narrow entrance court (<2), extending across the entire build-
ing and open to the sky. On the walls, as also on the outside
of the building, are remains of a simple stucco decoration;