Page:History of Architecture in All Countries Vol 1.djvu/401

 Bk. IV. Ch. V. DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE. 369 opened. Sometimes this was covered by two beams placed in one direction, and "two crossing them at right angles, framing the roof into nine compartments, generally of unequal dimensions, the central one being open, and with a corresponding sinking in the floor to receive the rain and drainage which inevitably came through it. When this court was of any extent, four pillars were required at the intersection of the beams, or angles of the opening, to support the roof. In larger courts, eight, twelve, sixteen, or more columns were so employed, often apparently more as decorative objects than as required by the constructive necessities of the case, and very frequently the number of these on either side of the apartment did not correspond. Frequently the angles were not right angles, and the pillars were placed unequally with a careless disregard of symmetry that strikes us as strange, though in such cases this may have been preferable to cold and formal regularity, and even more productive of grace and beauty. Besides these courts, there generally existed in the rear of the house another bounded by a dead wall at the further extremity, and Avhich in the smaller houses was painted, to re- semble the garden which the larger mansions possessed in this direction. The apartments looking on this court were of course j^erfectly private, which cannot be said of any of those looking inwards on the atrium. The house called that of Pansa at Pompeii is a good illustration of these peculiarities, and, as one of the most regular, has been fi'equently chosen for the purpose of illusti'ation. In the annexed j^lan (Woodcut No. 247) all the parts that do not belong to the j^rincipal mansion are shaded darker except the doubtful part marked A, which may either have been a sepa- rate house, or the women's apartments belonging to the principal one, or, what is even more probable, it may have been designed so as to be used for either purpose. B is certainly a separate house, and the whole of the remainder of this side, of the front, and of the third side, till we come opj^osite to A, was let off as shops. At c we have the kitchen and servants' apartments, with a private entrance to the street, and an opening also to the j^rincipal peristyle of the house. VOL. I. — 24 ^F -=?■ °?-^??''='?'"^t' 247. House of Pansa at Pompeii. (From GeU's "Pompeii.") Scale 100 ft. to 1 ia.