Tetrastylon is a Roman Architecture study designed to create the scientific basis for the identification and definition of a new type of Roman domus.
This project has studied a specific Roman house that we can only find in Roman towns with a Greek background. This type of house, which is a hybrid concept of Greek or Hellenistic scheme of house and a specific Roman courtyard type, has been observed in different parts of the Roman Empire. The work has been focused in the area of the ancient Magna Grecia and Sicily. For this reason, part of the time of the research has been devoted to fieldwork in Southern Italy and Sicily. In the last few years, various studies have identified a type of atrium house in the Roman cities with a Greek past, which is not possible to recognise as a common Roman atrium house. In fact, part of these studies defined the courtyard of these houses as a reduced peristyle because the household scheme is a Hellenistic concept. This phenomenon is complex and has required a deep analysis. This type of house had been detected in some archaeological sites, but until Tetrastylon, it had not had a complete, comparative and systematic study of different examples. In the absence of an integral compilation of this domus, the first step was to create the scientific basis for the identification and description of this house. After that, we can better understand the historical context, its real influences and the impact of this domestic structure on Roman society, which has been named “Tetrastyle Courtyard House”.
Therefore, conducting Tetrastylon significantly contributed to analyse 1) the European cultural heritage and identity, 2) the diversity of the European culture and 3) the interaction and translation of traditions of its different countries and regions. All of them are research goals recommended by the Horizon 2020 Framework Programme. The final objective of Tetrastylon was to understand the cultural exchange between two different societies as a result of different migratory waves, and how this social impact can be perceived within the domestic space and its daily consequences.
Objectives
1. Collect and systematise the information about the Tetrastyle Courtyard House and its variants.
2. Distinguish the social representation spaces (public part of the house) from the private sphere of the “Tetrastyle courtyard house”.
3. Conduct a spatial analysis of the Tetrastyle Courtyard House and its variants.
4. Compare the social impact of the Tetrastyle Courtyard House with the Atrium House, defining the social and public representation functions of both of them.
5. Simultaneously establish the architectural and functional differences between the two typologies for a proper identification of the archaeological remains.
6. To assess the role of Tetrastyle Courtyard House as an example of the immigrant societies integration in urban centres with previously established societies, differentiating architectural traces of each of the cultures involved in the formation of this domus: Greek, Roman and the preceding ones of each territory.
