Courtyard house with "mandolata"
The courtyard houses in Tuscany.
The courtyard houses in Tuscany are an unusual and unique type of ancient settlement. The courtyards are formed by groups of buildings, usually in a straight line, parallel or at right angles to each other.This layout that is Roman in origin. They are south-facing and have an open, stone or brick paved communal area where people worked or socialised, where grain was spread out to dry, and where the well and communal oven were situated.
The houses were backed onto by barns, haylofts, storerooms and outhbuildings for the various agricultural tools, which also stood in rows and marked out the communal courtyard.
The typical material of the courtyard houses was “mandolate,” bricks of varying designs and shapes which were positioned in such as way as to allow air into the haylofts.
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