However, it lost its specific function. Even during the Renaissance (churches of the Most Holy Annunciation and of St Mary Magdalene of the Pazzi in Florence, of St Gregory on the Caelian Hill in Rome) the atrium was sometimes placed before churches with ever-increasing variety of adaptations, so much so that in common usage the term also denotes a simple porch or any space preceding the nave of a church. — See Plate XXVII.
BIBL.: F. X. Kraus, Real-Encyclopädie der christlichen Altertümer, I, Freiburg im Br. 1882, pp. 121–22; H. Holtzinger, Die altchristliche Architektur in systematischer Darstellung, Stuttgart 1889, pp. 11–14; F. X. Kraus, Geschichte der christlichen Kunst, I, Freiburg im Br. 1890, pp. 283–84; G. Dehio–G. Bezold, Die kirchliche Baukunst des Abendlandes, I, ibid. 1892, p. 88; H. Leclercq, Basilique, in DACL, II, 1, cols. 588–90.