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The living quarters and houses
of the community
THE LIVING QUARTERS AND HOUSES
OF THE COMMUNITY
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Etruscan and Roman houses have disappeared. Some remains of these
houses have come to light among the foundations of the modern and
medieval constructions and it would be preferable to study them
when possible.
The common medieval houses, were for the most part a tower house
with one room on three floors. Even though many transformations
have been made over time, traces of this type of construction are
legible in many of the houses found on Via San Marco, Via Benedetti,
Via Ghibellina and others. They are small buildings which are one
room wide and two deep. The shorter sides all face the street and
for the most part run parallel to it. It is on this side that the
windows are placed, usually two per floor. The entry door on the
ground floor is usually centered on the facade and at times there
are two. The longer sides are confined by the walls of the neighboring
house but not common walls as there is always a space at the base
for the open sewer which carried away the waste. The stairway was
usually in stone and occupied a small side strip of the front room.
The first floor room had a large fireplace with the mantel in stone,
sometimes decorative. Besides the chimney there is a space for the
stone wash basin. The external facade is always decorated with taste
in worked stone and cornices on which the window frames rested,
in some cases they were arched in others they were completely framed
by elegant beams.
The houses that were built in the beginning of the fourteenth century
in Cortona are distinctive: the facade at the level above the ground
floor overhang above the street. The facades of these house are
made of stone only on the ground floorwhile the upper floors are
built of brick. The support beams which are placed above the ground
floor jut out about a meter from the ground floor and becomes the
support for the lighter construction in brick. Generally these houses
have only one floor above the ground floor however there are some
which have two. At the beginning of that century many examples of
thes types of structures could be seen on the secondary streets
of the city. However, back then there was a desire to modernize
even that which did not need it, therefore many of these buildings
were knocked down and today there are only a few on Via Ianelli
and two on Via San Benedetto.
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