Insula (ancient Rome)

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Ancient Rome included many dense cities, and all but their most wealthy occupants lived in Insula, buildings with shops on the first floor, and modest apartments on upper floors.[1]

The Insula dell'Ara Coeli, a rare surviving instance of an Insula, was unearthed during an urban renewal effort ordered by Benito Mussolini.[2]

References

  1. Dr. Jeffrey A. Becker. Roman domestic architecture (insula), Khan Academy. Retrieved on 2024-02-19. “The insulae of ancient Roman cities provided housing for the bulk of the urban populace. The plebs—defined as ordinary people of lower- or middle-class status—tended to inhabit insulae”
  2. Andrew Wallace-Hadrill (2003). Early Christian Families in Context: An Interdisciplinary Dialogue. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 14-15. ISBN 9780802839862. Retrieved on 2019-01-25. “Most legible and striking is the fourth floor, which is subdivided by internal corridors into a series of suites of three rooms. There has been considerable disagreement over their function, and Amanda Claridge, for instance, inclines to an identification as slave quarters. This seems to me to underestimate considerably the size and potential of these units. The end room is lit by two windows -- externally the windows form groups of three of which the third lights the corridor itself. This is surely the main living room, while the rooms behind serve as bedrooms and utility rooms. In present dank and dingy conditions it takes a leap of imagination, but with painted plaster on the walls, and in all likelihood simply white mosaic flooring, such an apartment would rank with the forty-square meter apartments in which many families now live in Rome.”