History of Interiors Test 2 Practice

A peristyle is a courtyard enclosed by a continuous row of columns, forming a colonnade all around the space. In Roman houses, this creates a private outdoor room — a garden or courtyard space you walk around in a shaded, columned arcade, often containing a fountain or plants. This exact setup is what the term captures: a central open area defined and enclosed by the surrounding colonnade.

Think of an atrium as the central reception area of a domus, usually open to the sky through a central opening and not defined by being ringed with columns. A forum is the public civic square in a city, not a private courtyard. A colonnade is the architectural feature of the columns themselves and doesn’t by itself specify a courtyard; the peristyle combines that columnar surround to define an interior courtyard space.