colonnade

Colonnade of the Stoa of Attalos, Athens.

colonnade, row of columns generally supporting an entablature (row of horizontal moldings), used either as an independent feature (e.g., a covered walkway) or as part of a building (e.g., a porch or portico). The earliest colonnades appear in the temple architecture of antiquity, numerous examples of which survive in Greece and Rome.

The Greek market hall, or stoa, as seen in Athens, is a particularly good illustration of a long colonnade serving a commercial purpose. Colonnades were much employed in the Baroque and Neoclassical periods, notably in St. Peter’s in Rome, which was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini and completed in 1667.