Very few paint jobs from Greek and Roman times are still extant (and even fewer interior doors), but whatever evidence we have of that scintillating epoch’s tastes would suggest that Cherry was the interior door finish of choice. The combination of the color and wood grain will impart warmth and cheeriness to any interior door model, clash with nothing, and be easy on the eyes – every time!
During the eight centuries of its turbulent and instructive existence (more, if you count the eastern half that continued on well into the Middle Ages), the Roman Empire experienced a large number of construction booms, each grander, more glorious, and encompassing more territory than the previous one; each transforming, and augmenting, and oftentimes improving upon everything built previously.
Octavian Augustus, technically the first Roman Emperor, famously boasted that he “found Rome a city of bricks” and was “leaving it a city of marble.” He may have been exaggerating a little, but, still, considering the fact that the population of Rome at its imperial peak was close to one million inhabitants, that’s a hell of a lot of construction, even though, sadly, very little evidence of Augustus’ building projects still remains. Time, negligence, barbarian invasions, and later-day owners’ and contractors’ unbridled vanity, took their toll. The temple, the palace, the theatre, the insula – it’s all gone, alas. Well, almost.
Emperor Hadrian, one of the “five good ones” and the greatest builder of them all, was an architect by training. Amazing, isn’t it? Moreover, he continued designing and supervising the construction of buildings throughout his reign. He made it is business to oversee many new projects personally, some of them in remote and backwoods regions, such as Northern England, paying close attention (go ahead, prove me wrong) to the design and durability of interior doors. An avid fan of the Greek school, he studded the vast territories, from Egypt to Gaul, and from the Iberian Peninsula to the Rhine, with numerous porticos and domes, all of his own design. Yes: even though most of his projects lie in ruins today, those noble remains speak volumes of the Emperor’s impeccable taste, and those few that are still intact are truly mind-blowing. (Not just the Pantheon, mind you, but all of them. The sheer scale of each project is awe-inspiring. Hadrian’s own villa, some thirty miles northeast of Rome, is really a miniature city, featuring actual streets, squares, plazas, three temples, five theatres, three bathing facilities, and a fully functional aqueduct all its own). (It is quite annoying, I must say, that most of the marble that used to adorn the walls of all those buildings was stripped away by Alexander Borgia’s grandson who was hellbent on building his own villa fifteen centuries after Hadrian’s death. He took most of the statues, too. Not cool. Yes, his villa is an astounding sight, and a tourist magnet, at that. So what).
Needless to say, construction on such a massive scale required a massive number of doors, including interior doors. All things being equal, it is safe to say that most of those featured some form of Cherry Finish, even though, surely, back in antiquity it must have gone by a different name.
