Portico
Portico
is an architectural term designating a range of columns In the front of a building. When of for columns it is called tetrastyle; when of six, hexastyle; of eight, octostyle; of ten, decastyle. The Latin porticus, however, from which the Italian portico and the French portique are derived, has a more extended signification in mediaeval writers; comprehending, in fact, every kind of covered ambulatory of which one or more sides are, opened to the air, by rows of columns or arches, whether it be attached to the front of a building or to its sides, or to the inner sides of an area, so as to form a cloister in the strict sense of the word. In an ancient church the porticos were tile cloisters about the area, otherwise called the exterior narthex (q.v.), and the place of the mourners. SEE PORCH.
