Columen, cantherii, transtra et capreoli: intorno alla genesi delle incavallature lignee

Abstract

The herein paper proposes a diachronic analysis of the timber carpentry roof in the roman context. It is based on cross attestations deriving from ancient literary sources, the iconography emphasized in artefacts belonging to different figurative arts that reproduce timber structures and on the beam sockets still present in some constructions. The analysed roof carpentries developed in antiquity in Greece, Magna Graece and Etruria, were , in general, constituted by a horizontal member on which struts rest,  with the role of supporting two oblique members that form the roof pitch. An organization that persisted in the roman constructive culture at least until the 4th century when the truss system, able to generate new interrelations among the component elements, became particularly widespread.