Customer Reviews

Houses, Villas, and Palaces in the Roman World

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This book has given me the incredible desire to take the rest of my life and do nothing except tour the archeological sites of classical Etruscan and Imperial Roman towns and cities! Alexander McKay- You are very cruel.

For many years I have seen pictures in books and online of fragments and ruins of buildings, which can be interesting but seeing the pictures in the context of a complete floor plan brings a sudden epiphany of how our forebearers lived. I spent 7 hours surfing on the net looking at the pictures online for a number of the palaces and houses included in this book and dreaming of an itinerary covering almost all of western Europe,northern Africa and great areas of the near and mid East. Now I need to go out and win a very large lottery to afford it.

OUTSTANDING:DETAILS OF HOMES, ROOM SIZES, AS IN ROOMS OFF THE
ATRIUM, INFOOR FOUNTAINS, HOMES AND VILLA AND PALACE DESIGNS.
Bedroom and Kitchen sizes, and a real glimpse into the Roman
World.

I kinda, sorta know my way around architectural drawings and terminolgoy, at least at the advanced homeowner/handyman level. I even had two years of Latin back when you had to have Latin and a "foreign" language to get out of high school. But, I'll admit a good bit of this was over my head, especially the architectural terminology.

That said, it has some very good plans, photos, and illustrations and even if you're missing some of the meaning because of the arcane or foreign terminology, you can still "get the drift" of what the writer is telling you. But I'm still looking for that good survey level book on Roman architecture, especially the villa rustica style, that might help me come up with a plan that is easily adapted to the Southern US - and to a lifestyle that doesn't involve servants. I guess that is the single most important thing I've learned about Roman architecture so far; the plans for the nicer, larger house all assume that the owners will be attended to by servants/slaves so convenient locations and traffic patterns aren't much of a concern.