Magical Destinations of the Northeast by Natalie Zaman

A famous use of the exedra is in Donato Bramante's Cortile del Belvedere extension of the Vatican Palace that exedra was initially open to the sky. The term exedra is still often used for secondary apses or niches in the more complicated plans of later Byzantine churches another term is conch, named for the scallop shell form often taken by the half- dome cap. In Byzantine architecture and Romanesque architecture, this familiar feature developed into the apse and is fully treated there. This was called a tribuna in Latin, and tribune is used for an area of raised floor backing onto a wall, often in an exedra.Įxedra of the Belvedere Court, at the Vatican Palace in Romeįollowing precedents from Rome, exedrae continued to be in widespread use architecturally after the fall of Rome. A basilica featured a large exedra at the far end from its entrance, where the magistrates sat, usually raised up several steps, in hearing cases. In the 1st century AD, Nero's architects incorporated exedrae throughout the planning of his Domus Aurea, enriching the volumes of the party rooms, a part of what made Nero's palace so breathtakingly pretentious to traditional Romans, for no one had ever seen domes and exedrae in a dwelling before.Īn exedra was normally a public feature: when rhetoricians and philosophers disputed in a Roman gymnasium it was in an exedra opening into the peristyle that they gathered. The exedra achieved particular popularity in ancient Roman architecture during the Roman Empire. Monument architects have also used this free-standing style in modern times. Some Hellenistic exedras were built in relation to a city's agora, as in Priene. The free-standing (open air) exedra, often supporting bronze portrait sculpture, is a familiar Hellenistic structure, characteristically sited along sacred ways or in open places in sanctuaries, such as at Delos or Epidaurus. The exedra would typically have an apsidal podium that supported the stone bench. An exedra may also be expressed by a curved break in a colonnade, perhaps with a semicircular seat. The original Greek sense ( ἐξέδρα, a seat out of doors) was applied to a room that opened onto a stoa, ringed with curved high-backed stone benches, a suitable place for conversation. Hot air circulated through the hypocaust to heat the house.Īn exedra (plural: exedras or exedrae) is a semicircular architectural recess or platform, sometimes crowned by a semi-dome, and either set into a building's façade or free-standing. The rest of the floor has deteriorated and is missing, with only parts of the hypocaust columns remaining. The foundations and partial floor of a late Roman villa.

Magical Destinations of the Northeast by Natalie Zaman