Roman atrium with fountain and pond.

The atrium (plural Latin : atria, Frenchified plural: atria) was among the Etruscans and the ancient Rome , the centerpiece of the family home ( ).

It was part of the house open to hosts, customers and visitors. According to a theory accepted by most historians, the atrium was in early Rome a courtyard surrounded by buildings, before the living space of the householder.

The word atrium would come from the city of Adria by Varro (LL, V, 33, 161) confirmed by Paul Deacon ^{The pre-Roman atrium}

The Etruscans had their houses before the gentile, a play called tuscanicum atrium or "Tuscan" (from Latin authors) . There above, among the Etruscans, access to the reception room of the master, including his bed, and the chapel of the ancestors, the tablinum. Several Etruscan tombs of Banditaccia reveals the details (windows, doors and eardrum) as they reproduce the details of life before the death of the deceased to accompany him on his journey to the afterlife.

If the atrium tuscanicum already has a compluvium and a catchment area to collect rainwater, it is not revealed or reproduced in the ceilings of tombs atria while the vaulted burial chambers simulate the gable roof and the ridge beam to the inside ( columen ).

The classical Roman atrium

It was usually a large room covered, square or rectangular (cavaedium). Its roof is open at the center, a basin ( catchment area ), sometimes with a jet of water, was under this opening and collected rainwater coming of compluvium , which was then directed to a cistern. There could also atriums oblong or circular, more or less attractive depending on the size of the house. Some homes had several. The walls of the atrium were often lined with marble up to level of support and decorated with frescoes. The ocelli imaginum (family tree), tables of bosses and hospitium and family records were kept in this room.

There are four kinds of atriums:

• Tuscan, was formed by four beams that crossed at right angles, with their ends sealed in the walls; he remained in an exposed part;
• Testudines it consisted of a large roof resembling a turtle shell, hence its name, the day passed below;
• tetrastyle, or four columns, it was like the Tuscan, but supported a column each intersection of the beams;
• Corinthian, the largest, consisting of colonnaded porticos of the Corinthian order.

Catchment area of the suburban villa of the Old-Roman , Basse-Normandie

The atrium also designated a courtyard surrounded by porticos in front of a temple or public building. There were in Rome the Atrium regium, that of Liberty, Auctionarium, that of Apollo Palatine, before the temple of the god on the Palatine Hill. It was a very beautiful, all marble and white marble from Africa, with many statues and equestrian trails.

Evolution post-Roman

In the Christian church, the atrium was the outer wall, the courtyard. In the early church Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, the atrium, marble floors, a pool comprised of jasper with a fountain in the middle, where the faithful were drawing water for ablutions.

In the early church St. Peter's in Rome was the only part of the basilica where persons not yet baptized (the catechumens ) could enter (the central nave / internal / external being reserved for baptized believers).

Finally, in the palaces of kings in the Middle Ages , the atrium was a magnificent main building, designed for public receptions.

References

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