Evolution of a ground floor

The medieval houses in Gubbio (and many other towns too) have undergone quite an evolution:

At first the real entrance to the house was the small door in the middle (now walled in), it was a bit above street level, connected to the street with a small, removable, wooden stair. This was to increase the defensibility of the home, in the often strife ridden cities of that time where families feuded with each other. Later, during the plagues, this door was used to move the dead out of the homes and directly into the corpse carts - leading to the common name "death door" (or sometimes "deads' door"). Even long after the plagues were gone, this custom stayed alive for a long time, leading to superstition: The door was only to be opened to move a dead body out of the house and then be closed as fast as possible to keep Death from returning into the house. Today some of these death doors are converted to display windows of shops.

The large arch was in the beginning the entrance to a workshop / shop located on the ground floor, that had no connection to the living rooms on the upper stories. During more peaceful times the defensive advantages of the small doors were outweighed by the disadvantages when it came to moving things through and simple comfort and so shop entrances suddenly became the entrance to the house proper (like with the left door in this case).

++++

Location: Gubbio (Province of Perugia), Umbria, Italy

++++

Postwork: frame, levels, curves, sharpening