Word Finder - portico

definition

A porch, or a small space with a roof supported by columns, serving as the entrance to a building.

It is a brick edifice with a portico on the ground floor and a large hall on the upper.

The present fabric is largely modern; while the portico was designed by Inigo Jones.

The abbot's palace has a fine Renaissance portico, and contains an interesting museum of local antiquities.

At the other end of the great hall is a similar portico facing outwards; and between this and the doors the hall is divided into three aisles by rows of Ionic columns.

Among the first of these benefactions was the great gymnasium of Ptolemy, built in the neighbourhood of the Agora about 250 B.C. Successive princes of the dynasty of Pergamum interested themselves in the adorn western entrance being the well-known Doric portico of Athena Archegetis with an inscription recording its erection from donations of Julius Caesar and Augustus.

The main facade of the cathedral was largely altered in 1491, to which date the statues upon it belong; the portico in front was added in 1497.

On the inner side towards the Acropolis, this wall is faced with a portico of six Doric columns.

The temple consisted of an eastern cella with pronaos; behind this was the opisthodomos, divided into three chambers - possibly treasuries - with a portico at the western end.

The approach to the grotto lay through a portico on the level with and fronting the street, and a pronaos, in communication with which was a kind of sacristy.

A third example of Roman architecture - the remains of a white marble portico supposed to have formed the entrance to the hippodrome - is known by the Judaeo-Spanish designation of Las Incantadas, from the eight Caryatides in the upper part of the structure.

To the south-west of the conspicuous temple alluded to are the remains of a temple of Cybele, with a portico.

Paul began the famous Villa Borghese; enlarged the Quirinal and Vatican; completed the nave, facade and portico of St Peter's; erected the Borghese Chapel in Sta Maria Maggiore; and restored the aqueduct of Augustus and Trajan ("Acqua Paolina").

The Post Office, at the corner of Exchange and Middle streets, is of white Vermont marble and has a Corinthian portico.

The western or outer front is flanked on each side by a projecting wing, with a row of three smaller Doric columns between Antae at right angles to the main portico.

Here was found a rectangular structure resembling a temple, but with a side door to the north; it possessed a portico of six columns.

A portico of four fluted Corinthian columns on the western side formed the entrance to the quadrangle.

The west end was formed by a wall, on which stood four columns between antae; but the main entrance to this western compartment was through a large and very ornate doorway on the north; and a large Ionic portico, consisting of four columns in the front, and one in the return on each side, was placed in front of this door.

In the north portico a square hole in the floor, with a corresponding hole in the roof above it, must have given access to another sacred object, the mark of Poseidon's trident in the rock.

Lord Elgin carried off to London, about 1801-1803, one of the columns of the east portico and one of the caryatides; these were replaced later by terra-cotta casts.

The present building has an imposing Corinthian portico, and encloses a court surrounded by an ambulatory adorned with historical paintings by Leighton, Seymour Lucas, Stanhope Forbes and others.

The great building in Bloomsbury (1828-1852) with its massive Ionic portico, houses the collections of antiquities, coins, books, manuscripts and drawings, and contains the reading-rooms for the use of readers.

A very important feature of the faade is the portico or porch-way, which covers the principal steps and is generally formed by producing the central portion of the main roof over the steps and supporting such projection upon isolated wooden pillars braced together near the top with horizontal ties, carved, moulded and otherwise fantastically decorated.

On the north side is the great hall (Fyapov), with an outer portico supported by two columns (alOovva) and an inner vestibule (TrpOSopos) with three doors.

Among the public buildings still recognizable are a theatre capable of accommodating 6000 spectators, a naumachia (circus for naval combats) and several temples, of which the largest was probably the grandest structure in the city, possessing a portico of Corinthian pillars 38 ft.

Thus the dressed stones of the ancient theatre served to build barracks; the material of the hippodrome went to build the church; while the portico of the hippodrome, supported by granite and marble columns, and approached by a fine flight of steps, was destroyed by Cardinal Lavigerie in a search for the tomb of St Marciana.

Its front is a specimen of the enriched Corinthian architecture, with a projecting pillared portico after the style of the temple of Jupiter Stator at Rome, 264 ft.

Each of the twelve pillars of the portico is a single block of stone, quarried at Dalserf, midway between Hamilton and Lanark, and required thirty horses to draw it to its site.

On the south it was bordered by a portico with a single row of columns in front; on the east by a double portico, more than a stadium in length (220 yds.), and serving as a racecourse for practice in bad weather.

At the south-east corner of the gymnasium, in the angle between the south and the east portico, was a Corinthian doorway, which a double row of columns divided into three passages.

Excavations had been made previously in some parts of the precinct; for example, the portico of the Athenians was laid bare in 1860.

The inscription on the portico states that it was erected by him during his third consulship. His friendship with Augustus seems to have been clouded by the jealousy of his father-in-law Marcellus, which was probably fomented by the intrigues of Livia, the second wife of Augustus, who feared his influence with her husband.

The hillock on which it rises was no doubt the site of earlier churches, but the present Transitional building dates only from the 12th and 13th centuries, while its portico was built in the 18th century, after the model of the Pantheon at Rome.

His polemic skill earned for him the title of the "Column of the Portico."

The Hebrew "shekel of the sanctuary" is familiar; the standard volume of the apet was secured in the dromus of Anubis at Memphis (35); in Athens, besides the standard weight, twelve copies for public comparison were kept in the city; also standard volume measures in several places (2); at Pompeii the block with standard volumes cut in it was found in the portico of the forum (33); other such standards are known in Greek cities (Gythium, Panidum and Trajanopolis) (11, 33); at Rome the standards were kept in the Capitol, and weights also in the temple of Hercules (2); the standard cubit of the Nilometer was before Constantine in the Serapaeum, but was removed by him to the church (2).

Sackville Street, which gains in appearance from its remarkable breadth, contains the principal hotels, and the post office, with a fine Ionic portico, founded in 1815.

There are three fronts; the principal, towards College Green, is a colonnade of the Ionic order, with façade and two projecting wings; it connects with the western portico by a colonnade of the same order, forming the quadrant of a circle.

Parliament Square, contains the chapel (1798), with a Corinthian portico, the public theatre or examination hall (1787), containing portraits of Queen Elizabeth, Molyneux, Burke, Bishop Berkeley and other celebrities, and the wainscotted dining hall, also containing portraits.

The lofty church of the Augustinians in Thomas Street; St Mary's, the pro-cathedral, in Marlborough Street, with Grecian ornamentation within, and a Doric portico; St Paul's on Arran Quay, in the Ionic style; and the striking St Francis Xavier in Gardiner Street, also Ionic, are all noteworthy, and the last is one of the finest modern churches in Ireland.

Not long afterwards we find the citizens receiving the present of a gymnasium from Ptolemy, and building in his honour a stoa or portico; but the city never recovered altogether from the disasters of the siege, and Cicero describes it as almost deserted.

A large open atrium, which once existed at the west, is now completely destroyed, having been replaced by a Renaissance portico.

The effect of the facade is not improved by the Renaissance portico that has been added to it.

In front, on the east, was a portico extending along the front of all three buildings; and east of this again a large trapeze-shaped vestibule or fore-hall, enclosed by a colonnade.

It contained a chapel of Hestia at the front or south-west side, before which a portico was afterwards built.

It was built in the Macedonian period to replace an earlier portico which stood farther back.

One, for the west part, passed from the south-west angle of the Heraeum to the south portico outside the south Altisjwall.

Gregory died on the 12th of March 604, and was buried the same day in the portico of the basilica of St Peter, in front of the sacristy.

In the pediment is a group of sixteen figures by Thorvaldsen, representing John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness; over the entrance within the portico is a bas-relief of Christ's entry into Jerusalem; on one side of the entrance is a statue of Moses by Bissen, and on the other a statue of David by Jerichau.

It is, however, certain from the existing remains that both this portico and the adjacent buildings had suffered severely from the earthquake of 63, and that they were undergoing a process of restoration, involving material changes in the original arrangements, which was still incomplete at the time of their final destruction.

The north end of the forum, where alone the portico is wanting, is occupied in great part by the imposing temple of Jupiter, Juno and Minerva being also worshipped here.

On the other hand the reverence attached to it in the later periods of the city is evidenced by its being left standing in the midst of a triangular space adjoining the great theatre, which is surrounded by a portico, so as to constitute a kind of forum (the so-called Foro Triangolare).