peristyle n : a colonnade surrounding a building or enclosing a court

English

Etymology

From French péristyle, from classical Latin peristylum, from Hellenistic Greek περίστυλον, noun use of the neuter form of περίστυλος ‘surrounded by columns’, from περι- + στῦλος ‘pillar’.

Pronunciation

• (UK) /ˈpɛɹɪstaɪl/
• (US) /ˈpɛɻəstaɪl/

Noun

1. A colonnade surrounding a courtyard, temple etc., or the space thus enclosed.
   • 1942: One cannot, for example, see the Temple of Æsculapius as one stands in the fine open courtyard as it was intended one should do; the interstices on that side of the peristyle have been blocked by Venetian Gothic buildings — Rebecca West, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon (Canongate 2006, p. 143)
2. A porch surrounded by columns.

In Greek and Roman architecture a peristyle is a columned porch or open colonnade in a building that surrounds a court that may contain an internal garden. "Tetrastoon" (Greek: "four arcades") is another name for this feature. In the Christian ecclesiastical architecture that developed from Roman precedents, a basilica, such as Old St Peter's in Rome, would stand behind a peristyle forecourt that sheltered it from the street. In time the cloister developed from the peristyle.

In rural settings a wealthy Roman could surround a villa with terraced gardens; within the city Romans created their gardens inside the domus. The peristylium was an open courtyard within the house; the columns or square pillars surrounding the garden supported a shady roofed portico whose inner walls were often embellished with elaborate wall paintings of landscapes and trompe-l'oeil architecture. Sometimes the lararium, a shrine for the Lares, the gods of the household, was located in this portico, or it might be found in the atrium. The courtyard might contain flowers and shrubs, fountains, benches, sculptures and even fish ponds.

Though the Egyptians did not use the Greek term peristyle, historians have adopted it to describe similar structures in Egyptian palace architecture and in Levantine houses known as liwan houses.

See also

• Decastyle
• Hexastyle
• Hypostyle
• Octostyle
• Portico
• Tetrastyle

External links

• Barbara McManus, "The Peristylium": a reconstruction of a peristyle