A shaky premise
Whatever the merits of Schlosser's theories might have
been—and even if he had been correct in his assumption
that the Etruscan and Roman atrium houses that he discussed
were of truly basilican type—a problem of major
magnitude was still presented by the formidable gap—
chronological, topographical, and cultural—that separated
Rahn's St. Gall house from its presumptive Etruscan and
Early Roman prototypes. To bridge this gap Franz Oelmann,
in 1923/24, attempted to demonstrate that houses
of the Poggio Gaiella type (fig. 269) were common in Roman
imperial times and continued to be in use in the provincial
territories of Germany and Gaul even after they had been
conquered by the Franks.[22]
