225px|thumb|The portico of [[Croome Court in Croome D'Abitot (England)]]
225px|thumb|Temple diagram with location of the pronaos highlighted
A portico 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 was widely used in ancient Greece and has influenced many cultures, including most Western cultures.
Porticos are sometimes topped with pediments. <!-- Bologna, Italy, is famous for its porticos. In total, there are over of arcades, some 38 in the city center. The longest portico in the world, about , extends from the edge of the city to Sanctuary of the Madonna di San Luca. In Bologna, Italy, porticos stretch for . [There appears to be some confusion here, perhaps with arcade.] -->
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 ( or ) 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. The pronaos of a Greek and Roman temple is typically topped with a pediment.
Types
The different variants of porticos are named by the number of columns they have. The "style" suffix comes from the Greek , "column". In Greek and Roman architecture, the pronaos of a temple is typically topped with a pediment.
Tetrastyle
thumb|[[Temple of Portunus in Rome, with its tetrastyle portico of four Ionic columns]]
The tetrastyle has four columns; it was commonly employed by the Greeks and the Etruscans for small structures such as public buildings and amphiprostyles.
The Romans favoured the four columned portico for their pseudoperipteral temples like the Temple of Portunus, and for amphiprostyle temples such as the Temple of Venus and Roma, and for the prostyle entrance porticos of large public buildings like the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine. Roman provincial capitals also manifested tetrastyle construction, such as the Capitoline Temple in Volubilis.
The North Portico of the White House is perhaps the most notable four-columned portico in the United States.
Hexastyle
Hexastyle buildings had six columns and were the standard façade in canonical Greek Doric architecture between the archaic period 600–550 BCE up to the Age of Pericles 450–430 BCE.
Greek hexastyle
thumb|The hexastyle [[Temple of Concordia, Agrigento|Temple of Concord at Agrigentum (c. 430 BCE)]]
Some well-known examples of classical Doric hexastyle Greek temples:
- The group at Paestum comprising the Temple of Hera (c. 550 BCE), the Temple of Apollo (c. 450 BCE), the first Temple of Athena ("Basilica") (c. 500 BCE) and the second Temple of Hera (460–440 BCE)
- The Temple of Aphaea at Aegina c. 495 BCE
- Temple E at Selinus (465–450 BCE) dedicated to Hera
- The Temple of Zeus at Olympia, now a ruin
- Temple F or the so-called "Temple of Concordia" at Agrigentum (c. 430 BCE), one of the best-preserved classical Greek temples, retaining almost all of its peristyle and entablature
- The "unfinished temple" at Segesta (c. 430 BCE)
- The Temple of Hephaestus below the Acropolis at Athens, long known as the "Theseum" (449–444 BCE), also one of the most intact Greek temples surviving from antiquity
- The Temple of Poseidon on Cape Sunium (c. 449 BCE)
Hexastyle was also applied to Ionic temples, such as the prostyle porch of the sanctuary of Athena on the Erechtheum, at the Acropolis of Athens.
Roman hexastyle
With the colonization by the Greeks of Southern Italy, hexastyle was adopted by the Etruscans and subsequently acquired by the ancient Romans. Roman taste favoured narrow pseudoperipteral and amphiprostyle buildings with tall columns, raised on podiums for the added pomp and grandeur conferred by considerable height. The Maison Carrée at Nîmes, France, is the best-preserved Roman hexastyle temple surviving from antiquity.
Octastyle
thumb|The western side of the octastyle [[Parthenon in Athens]]
Octastyle buildings had eight columns; they were considerably rarer than the hexastyle ones in the classical Greek architectural canon. The best-known octastyle buildings surviving from antiquity are the Parthenon in Athens, built during the Age of Pericles (450–430 BCE), and the Pantheon in Rome (125 CE). The destroyed Temple of Divus Augustus in Rome, the centre of the Augustan cult, is shown on Roman coins of the 2nd century CE as having been built in octastyle.
Decastyle
The decastyle has ten columns; as in the temple of Apollo Didymaeus at Miletus, and the portico of University College London.
Gallery
<!--This gallery (entitled a "Short visual history of porticos") is severely lacking in post-Renaissance Neoclassical/Classical Revival/Federal and other architectures in the last several centuries that widely used - and are still using - porticos in their designs.-->
<gallery widths="220px" caption="Short visual history of porticos">
Gizeh - Mastaba des Seschemnefer IV 2019-11-03a.jpg|Ancient Egyptian portico of the Mastaba of Seshemnefer IV (Giza pyramid complex, Egypt)
Κνωσός 0624.jpg|Minoan portico of the Knossos Palace (Crete, Greece)
Athens Acropolis Temple of Athena 02.jpg|Ancient Greek portico with Ionic columns of the Temple of Athena Nike (Athens, Greece)
File:Model of an Etruscan temple, it was constructed between 1889 and 1890 on the basis of the ruins found in Alatri, National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, Rome (32614445355).jpg|Etruscan portico of a temple model (now in National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia, Rome)
Maison Carree in Nimes (11).jpg|Ancient Roman portico of the Maison Carrée (Nîmes, France)
La Grande Mosquée de Kairouan 05.JPG|Islamic portico of the Great Mosque of Kairouan (Kairouan, Tunisia)
1Temple 17 - Buddhist Monument - Sanchi Hill 2013-02-21 4493-2.jpg|Indian portico of the Sanchi Temple 17 (Sanchi, India)
Forbiddencityviewpic13.jpg|Chinese portico of the Forbidden City (Beijing, China)
Claustro de Santo Domingo de Silos. Panda sur.jpg|Romanesque portico of the Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos (Santo Domingo de Silos, Spain)
Chartres Cathedral North Porch NW 2007 08 31.jpg|Gothic portico of the Chartres Cathedral (Chartres, France)
4, Strada Stavropoleos, Bucharest (Romania) 1.jpg|Brâncovenesc portico of the Stavropoleos Church (Bucharest, Romania)
07-Villa-Rotonda-Palladio.jpg|Renaissance portico of the Villa Capra "La Rotonda" (Vicenza, Veneto, Italy)
P1040021 Paris Ier Palais du Louvre façade orientale rwk.JPG|Baroque porticos of the Louvre Colonnade (Paris)
File:Petit Trianon, théâtre de la Reine, entrée.jpg|Louis XVI portico of the Théâtre de la reine, part of the Petit Trianon (France)
Paris Palais Légion-d'Honneur Cour 2014.jpg|Neoclassical portico of the (Paris)
File:Façade Palais Bourbon 3.jpg|Empire style portico of the (Paris)
29, Strada Matei Basarab, Bucharest (Romania).jpg|Romanian Revival portico of the Ștefan Lilovici House (Bucharest)
File:Bologna san luca-5.jpg|The Portico of San Luca in Bologna, Italy, which is possibly the world's longest.
File:White House north and south sides.jpg|Elevations showing the north and south porticos of The White House
</gallery>