That In Each Building There Is A Court
Yard In The Centre, Something Like The Court Yard Of A Convent, Which Is
Sometimes Paved In Mosaic, And Generally Surrounded By Columns; In The
Middle Of This Court Is A Fountain Or Basin:
The court has no roof and the
wings of the house form a quadrangle environing it.
The windows and doors
of the rooms are made in the interior sides of the quadrangle looking into
the court yard; on the exterior there appears to be only a small latticed
window near the top of the room to admit light. I have seen in Egypt and in
India similarly built houses, and it is the general style of building in
Andalusia and Barbary. In the rooms are niches in the walls for lamps,
precisely in the style of the Moorish buildings in India.
In many of the chambers of the houses at Pompeii are paintings al fresco
and arabesques on the walls which on being washed with water appear
perfectly fresh. The subjects of these paintings are generally from the
mythology. In some of the rooms are paintings al fresco of fish, flesh,
fowl and fruit; in others Venus and the Graces at their toilette, from
which we may infer that the former were dining rooms and the latter
boudoirs. A large villa (so I deem it as it stands without the gates) has a
number of rooms, two stories entire and three court yards with fountains,
many beautiful fresco paintings on the walls of the chambers.
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