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In ancientGreek[1] andRoman architecture,[2] aperistyle (/ˈpɛrɪˌstaɪl/;Ancient Greek:περίστυλον,romanized: perístulon)[3][4] is a continuousporch formed by a row ofcolumns (acolonnade) surrounding theperimeter of a building or acourtyard.Tetrastoön (τετράστῳον/τετράστοον,tetrástōion/tetrástoon,'four arcades')[5] is a rarely used archaic term for this feature.[6] The peristyle in a Greek temple is aperistasis (περίστασις,perístasis).[7] In the Christianecclesiastical architecture that developed from the Romanbasilica, a courtyard peristyle and its garden came to be known as acloister.
The Greek word περίστυλονperístylon is composed of περίperi, "around" or "surrounded", and στῦλοςstylos, "column" or "pillar", together meaning "surrounded by columns/pillars". It was Latinised into synonymsperistylum andperistylium.
In rural settings, a wealthy Roman could surround avilla withterraced gardens but often included a peristyle with the design; in adomus in the city, Romans often used peristyle to create a garden or open space within the house. The columns or square pillars surrounding the garden supported a shady roofedportico whose inner walls were often embellished with elaborate wall paintings of landscapes andtrompe-l'œil architecture. Sometimes thelararium, a shrine for theLares, the gods of the household, was located in this portico, or it might be found in theatrium.[8]
The courtyard might contain flowers and shrubs, fountains, benches, sculptures and even fish ponds.[9] 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 inRoman North Africa, often one part of the portico was eliminated for a larger open space.[10]
The end of the Romandomus is one mark of the extinction oflate antiquity. Simon P. Ellis wrote in theAmerican Journal of Archaeology that it represented "the disappearance of the Roman peristyle house marks the end of the ancient world and its way of life."[11] "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 thebasilica, or audience chamber, of the magnate.[12]
In theEastern Roman empire, late antiquity lingered longer: Ellis identified the latest-known peristyle house built from scratch as the Villa of the Falconer atArgos, Peloponnese, dating from the style of its floormosaics to about 530–550.[13] 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 atCyrene.[14]
Althoughancient Egyptian architecture predates Greek and Roman architecture, historians frequently use the Greek termperistyle to describe similar, earlier structures inancient Egyptian palace architecture and inLevantine houses known asliwan houses.
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