Compluvium
The Compluvium ( Latin com 'together-', pluvia 'rain') is an open skylight in the roof of the ancient atrium , a room in an Italian-type residential building.
The Compluvium is usually embedded as a rectangular opening in the middle of the ceiling of the atrium. On the one hand, it serves to illuminate the atrium, which often has no external walls and therefore no regular windows. On the other hand, it enables rainwater to be drawn in , which is collected in the impluvium below and passed on from there to a cistern .
In order to increase the amount of water captured, the surrounding roof surfaces are inclined inwards in the most widespread construction method, the "Atrium impluviatum", so that the four eaves form the upper edge of the roof opening and thus all of the water that hits the roof surfaces through the Compluvium is passed into the impluvium.
swell
- Marcus Terentius Varro de lingua Latina 5.161
- Vitruvius de architectura 6.3.1f
literature
- August Mau : Compluvium . In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume IV, 1, Stuttgart 1900, Col. 795 f.
