Pronaos: See Naos.
Proportion: a principle of Beauty, that regulates the quantity and quality of the parts of a work of art according to their functional importance in the organic unity of the whole.
Propylæa: the entrance gate or vestibule to a group of buildings.
Proscenium (lit. “before the scene” [skene]): in the Classic theatre a structure, occupying the open end of the horse-shoe plan, to screen from view the “skene” or actor’s dressing-place. It formed the background to the Drama.
Prostyle (lit. “having columns in front”): used to describe a temple plan that has a Portico at only one of its ends. Compare Amphi-prostyle.
Prototype: the primitive, rude, original form, out of which finer and more efficient types have been developed.
Pseudo-dipteral (lit. “false-double-winged”): when the temple appears to have a double row of columns on the sides, but the inner range is omitted and the space between the columns and wall of the Cella is thereby double the usual Intercolumniation (which see).
Pseudo-peripteral (lit. “false-winged-around”); when the columns on the sides of a temple, instead of standing free, are Engaged (which see) in the wall of the Cella.
Pteroma (pr. ter-ō´-ma): pl. pteromata: term applied to the side walls of a Cella; hence, sometimes to the space between the latter and the columns of the Peristyle.