For other uses, see
Portico (disambiguation).

Under the portico of the Pantheon

Temple diagram with location of the
pronaos highlighted
A
portico (from
Italian) is a
porch leading to the entrance of a building, or extended as a
colonnade, with a roof structure over a walkway, supported by
columns or enclosed by walls. This idea first appeared in
Ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures.
Some noteworthy examples of porticos are the East Portico of the
United States Capitol, the portico adorning the
Pantheon in
Rome and the portico of
University College London.
Bologna,
Italy, is very famous for its porticos. In total, there are over 45 kilometres of arcades, some 38 in the city center. The longest portico in the world, about 3.5 km, extends from the edge of the city to
Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca. In
Turin,
Italy, porticos stretch for 18 kilometres.
Palladio was a pioneer of using temple-fronts for secular buildings. In the
UK, the temple-front applied to
The Vyne, Hampshire was the first portico applied to an
English country house.
A
pronaos is the inner area of the portico of a
Greek or
Roman temple, situated between the portico's colonnade or walls and the entrance to the
cella, or shrine. Roman temples commonly had an open pronaos, usually with only columns and no walls, and the pronaos could be as long as the
cella. The word
pronaos is
Greek for "before a temple". In
Latin, a pronaos is also referred to as an
anticum or
prodomus.
It shows up as a portico in google images. :blink: