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PALACES, BASILICAS, LIBRARIES AND INSULAE
Palaces
The words palazzo (Italian), palace (English) or palais (French) and the other similar words come from the name of the Palatine hill in Rome. On this hill the patrician family Julia (gens Iulia in Latin) owned some land and built their residence. When Octavian became Roman emperor after his succession to Julius Caesar their home and the name of the Palatine hill itself became synonymous with Imperial residence. After him many others emperors built there their houses: Tiberius, the ones from the gens Flavia, Alexandrus Severus and so on.
Basilicas
The Latin word basilica (derived from Greek, Basiliké Stoà, Royal Stoa), was originally used to describe a Roman public building (as in Greece, mainly a tribunal), usually located at the center of a Roman town (forum). In Hellenistic cities, public basilicas appeared in the 2nd century BC. After the Roman Empire became officially Christian, the term came by extension to refer to a large and important church that has been given special ceremonial rites by the Pope.
Libraries
Unlike the Greek libraries, readers had direct access to the scrolls, which were kept on shelves built into the walls of a large room. Reading or copying was normally done in the room itself. The surviving records give only a few instances of lending features. As a rule Roman public libraries were bilingual: they had a Latin room and a Greek room. Most of the large Roman baths were also cultural centers, built from the start with a library, with the usual two room arrangement for Greek and Latin texts.
Insulae
In Roman architecture, insulae (singular insula) were large apartment buildings where the lower and middle classes of Romans (the plebs) dwelled. The floor at ground level was used for tavernas, shops and businesses with living space on the higher floors. The urbanization of the larger Roman cities caused a great demand for housing which was within a comparable vicinity of the city center and real estate was therefore at a premium. As such, private houses were a luxury which only the wealthy could afford. This led to a majority of the inhabitants of the inner city living in apartment and tenement housing called insulae.
These houses were often constructed at minimal expenses for speculative purposes. The insulae were therefore of poor construction and prone to fire and collapse, as described by Juvenal. The insulae could be up to six or seven stories high and could accommodate over 40 people. The Romans were the first civilisation to utilise flats and apartments.
by Wikipedia
Specialized sites on palaces, libraries, basilicas and insulae:
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