Tuesday, August 26, 2014
A Day in the Life of Ancient Rome: Impluviums
Several years ago I had bought this popular history of a Roman day by Alberto Angela, the host of an Italian TV science series, when I was at the Oxnard Costco (surprisingly). I decided to reread it for the trip to Rome so I picked it up at the library and I'm discovering all sorts of things that I had forgotten or perhaps had never absorbed.
For instance, at 6:00 am we visit the domus or house of a wealthy Roman and describes the impluvium in the atrium. The impluvium is a pool of water below a large opening to the sky in the middle of the house (like a small courtyard) that allows the rainwater (and sunlight) in. The roof around it is sloped down towards the opening so that even more rainwater is collected and the excess is stored underground in cisterns. Because A Day in the Life... is not well illustrated, I googled impluvium and came up with a lot of images, some of the most interesting were "lavoirs" or laundries in France, as illustrated on the left, where you can see how the roof slopes down. There are some nice illustrations of this system on the web, including one Roman villa near Barcelona Torre LLauder, where we learn that the opening in the roof is called a compluvium. There are lots of illustrations of this system on the web, which would be a neat one to have in California, although I haven't run across any signs that they are interested.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
And I'm reading "City" by David Macaulay which you probably remember from the kids. It's worth rereading, and has wonderfully illustrative line drawings. He mentions that because one house was built right up against the other the only windows were facing the street, usually small and barred. All the more reason for the compluvium. Think we'll remember our pluviums, or pluvi, or whatever?
ReplyDeleteAnother model of a Roman house says that the front rooms facing the street were rented out for stores, as in this model.
DeleteYep, on the ground floor, and that's true in many places including historically in NYC tenements, and in today's China....i wonder how much longer China will be a country of small merchants, not big box stores.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised that in Mexico City, there weren't the corner produce stores like there were in Bogota. Maybe Fernando and I should hurry up and visit China.
ReplyDelete