This dissertation expands upon previous analyses of the social functions of Pompeian domestic architecture by articulating the essential role of the peristyle garden in communicating the status of the homeowner while structuring the interactions of residents and visitors with the art and architecture both of the peristyle itself and with the house as a whole. Peristyles provided light, air, and circulation space for the home, but their aesthetic function was just as significant; embellished with painting, sculpture, fountains, and plants, peristyles were important centers of display. Although typically the largest and most lavishly decorated architectural space in a Pompeian house, the peristyle is often treated summarily in studies of Pompeian domestic architecture. This study fills a lacuna in scholarship, examining the architecture of peristyles in conjunction with the paintings, sculptural ensembles, and other features that adorned them. This synthetic approach to the material remains allows for an examination of peristyles as lived spaces rather than as collections of disparate decorative elements. The dissertation is divided into four chapters, each focusing on a specific problem related to the design and function of peristyles. The first chapter presents the characteristic architectural and decorative features of true, or fully colonnaded, peristyles in Pompeian houses. The second chapter consists of two case studies of true peristyles that demonstrate the role and function of the true peristyle within the Pompeian house. These case studies articulate the function of the peristyle relating to issues of status, access, and display in the House of the Vettii (VI.15.I) and the House of the Lovers (I.10.11). The third chapter addresses the architectural and decorative features of truncated peristyles, or those that are not fully colonnaded. This chapter also addresses differences in size, architecture, and decoration between true and truncated peristyles. The fourth chapter uses the truncated peristyles of the House of Marcus Lucretius (IX.3.5) and House of the Vettii (VI.15.1) as case studies to assess the various roles of truncated peristyles within the domestic setting. Together, these chapters bring about a more complete understanding of the social and aesthetic function of Pompeian residences and how domestic art and architecture shaped the experience of the viewer, enhanced the prestige of the owner, and affirmed social hierarchy.

Leisure is most basically defined as the time free from work. The ancient conception and forms of leisure were quite different from the modern ones, which came into discussion during the industrial era. The Roman society was highly stratified and comprised of diverse social classes for which leisure acquired different forms and meanings. Every stratum of the Roman society enjoyed the possibilities and pleasures of leisure proportional to its hierarchy in the social system, so that leisure can be investigated in both public and private contexts in the Roman world. This study aims to investigate leisure, which was one of the main driving social forces in the Roman society, in spatial terms with reference to Roman domestic architecture. The study focuses on central Italy and particularly on Ephesus, the latter of which is a good example to discuss how the Roman conception of leisure was spatially materialized in a provincial private setting since a group of well studied, documented, and published houses constitute an appropriate comparative sample and context in Ephesus. The spatial organization and characteristics of the spaces housing leisurely activities are discussed on the basis of an axes-scheme that regulated and even dictated the visual and bodily interaction of the participants with certain spaces and elements during leisure activities either in a static state (sitting, reclining), or a kinetic one (walking, perambulating). The visual axes are those perceived in either of these states, along which the eye is directed towards a visual focal point, whereas the dynamic axes are those along which people move during a kinetic leisurely activity. The location, architecture, and use of leisure-oriented spaces in the Roman period houses in Ephesus, such as triclinium, exedra, oecus, museion, and peristyle courtyard are examined with reference to the proposed axes-scheme to present and compare the operation of leisure in the Roman provincial and private setting.

Le tablinum est une salle que l’on trouve dans presque toutes les demeures du monde romain : il s’agit de la pièce principale de l’atrium, entièrement ouverte sur celui-ci et située au terme de son axe longitudinal, en face de l’entrée. Son étymologie dérive du terme latin tabula, signifiant tablette, registre de comptes. On a donc déduit qu’il s’agissait d’un espace servant à conserver les documents administratifs et juridiques de la famille, inscrits sur ces tablettes et réunis sous forme d’archives. Les sources latines confirment, par ailleurs, cette hypothèse. Le tablinum serait alors un réceptacle de la mémoire officielle de la familia. Il existe toujours, néanmoins, plusieurs interprétations contradictoires sur la nature du tablinum, sa définition, son apparition dans la maison romaine ainsi que sur son évolution architecturale et stylistique. À travers les témoignages du genre les mieux conservés du monde romain : ceux de la cité campanienne de Pompéi, nous tentons dans la présente étude de retracer l’histoire du tablinum romain, son origine étrusque, ses différentes formules et articulations, d’exposer toute la gamme de décors qui ornaient ses murs et de revenir sur les différentes fonctions qu’il put occuper au cours des siècles. / The tablinum is a room found in almost all homes in the Roman world: it is the main room of the atrium, fully open on it and located at the end of its longitudinal axis, in front of the entrance. Its etymology derives from the Latin word tabula, meaning tablet, account register. It was therefore deduced that this was a space used to store the family’s administrative and legal documents, inscribed on these tablets and collected in the form of archives. Moreover, Latin sources confirm this hypothesis. The tablinum would then be a receptacle of the official memory of the familia. There are still, however, several contradictory interpretations about the nature of the tablinum, its definition, its appearance in Roman houses as well as its architectural and stylistic evolution. In this study, through the best-preserved testimonies of the Roman world – those found in the Campanian city of Pompei –we attempt to retrace the history of the Roman tablinum, its Etruscan origin, its different forms and articulations, to expose all the range of decorations that adorned his walls and to rediscover the different functions that it could occupy over the centuries.

This dissertation focuses on the constructing and architectonic development of Premonstratensian monastery and the church of St. Giles of Milevsko in the Middle Ages. The work is based on the older art historical literature and it evaluates the archaeological researches' findings in the locality as well as construction and historic researches of particular buildings, which were carried on with connection to the restitution of the site to the Premonstratensian order in the 1990s. The work demonstrates the Milevsko grounds picture and its construction as well as architectonic development from the establishment of the pre- monastery era in the eighth century until the Hussite's wars. The dissertation provides study of court with a church with apsis, stone Romanesque house and the basilica. It characterises the George of Milevsko personality as well as the significance of the abbot Jarloch. It analyses in detail the Roman architecture of St. Giles Church and attempts to interpret the procedure of its construction. Furthermore, it deals with the shape of the monastery's basilica and the description of Romanesque monastic buildings while comparing the premises to other monastic sites in this country. This dissertation also describes the architectonic boom of abbeys in the era of early Gothics as well as...