Peristyle
A peristyle is a courtyard with a covered walkway all the way around it, with columns holding up the ceiling so you can see out into the garden. Peri means "around" and style means "column", so a peristyle is a place with columns all the way around it. The earliest peristyle courtyards that we know of were in Greek houses, beginning around the Classical period. Peristyles were also common in wealthier Roman houses, all over the Roman Empire, beginning about the time of the Julio-Claudian Emperors.
This is the remains of a peristyle from the palace of Domitian on the Palatine Hill in Rome (about 90 AD).
The columns that go all the way around the outside of a temple are also a peristyle, so a temple that has them, like this one from Paestum in southern Italy, is called a peristyle temple.
In the Middle Ages in Europe, the peristyle courtyard develops into the cloister in monasteries and convents.
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