Welcome to the MedLibrary.org Wikipedia Supplement on Balconies -- Please Click to Return to Front Page

A balcony comprising a balustrade supported at either end by plinths. The balcony is supported on console brackets.

Balcony (from Italian balcone, scaffold; cf. High German balcho, beam, balk; probably cognate with Persian term بالكانه bālkāneh or its older variant پالكانه pālkāneh ¹), a kind of platform projecting from the wall of a building, supported by columns or console brackets, and enclosed with a balustrade. The traditional Maltese balcony is a wooden closed balcony projecting from a wall.

Alternatively, Juliet balconies (named after Shakespeare's Juliet who famously courted Romeo from her balcony) do not protrude out of the building. They are usually part of an upper floor, with a balustrade only at the front, and walls on the sides. Romeo and Juliet was not based on actual people and various types of balcony have be used in depicting the scene; in particular the very popular balcony of Juliet at Villa Capuleti in Verona is not in fact a 'Juliet balcony'.

Sometimes balconies are adapted for ceremonial purposes, e.g. that of St. Peter's Basilica at Rome, when the newly elected pope gives his blessing urbi et orbi after the conclave. Inside churches, balconies are sometimes provided for the singers, and in banqueting halls and the like for the musicians.

A unit with a regular balcony will have doors that open up onto a small patio with railings. To the contrary, a French balcony is actually a false balcony, with doors that open to a railing with a view of the courtyard or the surrounding scenery below.

In theatres, the balcony was formerly a stage-box, but the name is now usually confined to the part of the auditorium above the dress circle and below the gallery.

Famous uses of balconies

Balconies have been used extensively in many television, movie, and stage performances. One of the most famous of all is, by far, the famous "balcony scene" in William Shakespeare's famous tragedy, Romeo and Juliet.

Edouard Manet: Le balcon

Ford Madox Brown, the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet

The famous balcony of Juliet at Villa Capuleti in Verona.

Catalan ironwork balcony

Colourful balcony in Rome

Balconies with cast iron balustrades in Lisbon.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Balconies

• Deck
• Jharokha
• Minstrel's gallery
• Porch
• Verandah
• Patio

Footnotes

1. ^ Dehkhoda Persian Dictionary

This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (June 2007)

Wikipedia content modification information:

• This page was last modified on 3 December 2008, at 19:10.

Wikipedia Authorship and Review

Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.

Wikipedia Usage Guidelines

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Balconies".

The URL for this specific entry is:

• http://medlibrary.org/medwiki/Balconies

All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.