Ten Books on Architecture

...if some think the Attic column, of which Vitruvius speaks in Book 3, Chapter 3, was square, it should be passed over as irregular and never accepted among these orders, no more than other extravagant inventions of entwined vine-tendrils and figured columns, which our author himself condemns, since in his entire work he is an enemy of such imaginings. Secondly, all are diminished and contracted imperceptibly, more or less, according to the proportion of their height, from the third part of their shaft upwards; which Philander prescribes from the exact measurement of ancient relics observed by him as the most graceful diminution. And here I must criticize a custom which has, for some reason, taken root in many places, of swelling columns in the middle, as if they were suffering from tympanites or dropsy, without any authentic example or rule, as far as I know, and with a very ungraceful appearance (in my own judgment). It is indeed true that Vitruvius says in Book 3, Chapter 2: Regarding the addition which is added to the middle of columns, which is called entasis among the Greeks, its formation will be in the final book: which passage seems to support this error. But in this promise, as in others elsewhere, our Master has deceived us, whether by a slip of memory or the injury of time, and thus we have been left in the dark. I am certain, meanwhile, that besides the lack of example, this is contrary to the original and natural type of trees, which they followed earlier in columns, as Vitruvius himself observes in Book 5, Chapter 1. For who has ever seen a Cypress or a Pine (which are alleged there) narrow at the bottom and top, and swelling in the middle, unless it were a diseased plant; just as Nature (though a most beautiful Mistress) sometimes permits her deformities and irregularities.

Thirdly, they all have their stylobates, with a height of the third part of the whole column, including the base and capital; as their upper additions—the epistyle, the zophorus, and the cornice—have a fourth part of the said column; which rule of singular utility and ease I have found handed down by Giacomo Barozzi, to whom I believe greater faith should be accorded than to those who differ from him in these dimensions, because he directed his mind most of all to this part. These things especially, all orders have in common. The properties of them, or their differences, will be best known from a modest description of each, with their epistyles, zophori, and cornices, as they are commonly treated.

First, therefore, the Tuscan is a plain, massive, or rustic column, similar to some robust and well-limbed peasant, cheaply dressed; a type of comparison in which Vitruvius seems to delight in Book 4, Chapter 1. Its length shall be six diameters of the thickest lower part of the shaft itself: which is the most natural of all proportions. For our Author teaches us in Book 3, Chapter 1, that the foot of a man is the sixth part of that body in ordinary dimension, and man himself, according to Protagoras (which Aristotle approves somewhere), is the measure of all things, as it were the prototype of all exact symmetry, which we have already touched upon on another occasion. This column I have with good right called Rural, according to Vitruvius, Book 3, Chapter 2. Therefore, there is no need to consider its order among the others. Its interval or Intercolumniation (a term craftsmen commonly use) can be about four of its diameters, because the elements which were commonly superimposed on these columns were of timber rather than stone; because of their lightness, the epistyle could not labor, even if lightly supported, much less the column itself, being so massive. The contraction above will be (according to the most accepted practice) a fourth part of the lower thickness. To conclude (for I intend only as much as pertains to a just distinction, and not the delineation of every small member), the Tuscan is the most rude column; and its principal character is simplicity.

The Doric order is the most serious of those which have been accepted into common use, preserving, with respect to others that follow, a more masculine appearance; and not...