Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 2.djvu/454

Rh 416 mouldings to form its base, with, perhaps, a narrow square member under it, a plain dado, and a covering cornice or coping, on the back of which the columns rest. In the loftier examples a single and sometimes a double plinth comes under the base mouldings ; and a blocking course rest? upon the coping, to receive the bases of the columns. This last is only necessary when the height of the stylobate is such as to take the columnar base above the human eye, when the coping cornice would intercept it if a blocking course did not intervene. The column (Plate XIV.) consists of base, shaft, and capital, and varies in height from nine and a half to ten diameters. The base has, ordinarily, in addition to the diminishing congeries of mouldings which follows the circular form of the shafts, a square member or plinth, whose edges are vertical ; with this the whole height of the base is about half diameter. The rest of this part of the column is variously composed, but it generally con sists of two plain tori and a scotia, with fillets intervening, as in Greek examples of this order, but differently propor tioned and projected, as the examples indicate. Sometimes the scotia is divided into two parts by two beads, with fillets, as in the Jupiter Stator example, in which also a bead is placed between the upper torus and the fillet of the apophyge. The spread of the base varies from a diameter and one-third to a diameter and four-ninths. In the best Roman examples, as well as in the Greek, the shaft diminishes with entasis ; the average diminution is one- eighth of a diameter. The shaft was always fluted when the material of which it was composed did not oppose itself f for the Romans often used granites, and sometimes an onion-like marble, called therefore cipollino, for the shafts of columns ; the former of which could not be easily wrought and polished in flutes, and the latter would scale away if it were cut into narrow fillets. Like the Greek Corinthian and Ionic orders, the Roman Corinthian has twenty-four fillets and flutes. The flutes are generally semicircles, and they terminate at both ends, for the most part with that contour. Dividing the space for a fillet and a flute into five parts, four are given to the latter, and one to the former. The hypotrachelium is a plain torus, about half the size of the upper torus of the base, or half the width of a flute, as these nearly correspond ; it rests on a fillet above the cavetto at the head of the shaft. The ordinary height of the capital is a diameter and one- eighth ; but there is a very fine example, in which it barely exceeds a diameter, and another in which it is not quite so much. It is composed of two rows or bands of acanthus leaves, each row consisting of eight leaves ranged side by side, but not in contact ; of helices and tendrils trussed with foliage ; and an abacus, whose faces are moulded and variously enriched. The lower row of acanthus leaves is two-sevenths the whole height of the capital ; the upper row is two-thirds the height of the lower above it, and its leaves rest on the hypotrachelium below, in the spaces left between the others. They are placed regularly, too, under the helices and tendrils above, which support the angles, and are under the middle of each side of the abacus. The construction and arrangement of the next compartment above must be gathered from the examples, for a competent idea cannot be conveyed in words. The abacus is one-seventh of the height of the capital ; in plan it is a square whose angles are cut off, and whose sides are concaved in segments of a circle, under an angle at the centre of from 55 to 60. Its vertical face is generally a flat cavetto, with a fillet and carved ovolo corbelling over at an angle of about 125. The cavetto is Bometimes enriched with trailing foliage, and a rosette or flower of some kind overhangs the tendrils from the middle of each side of the abacus. [ROMAN Every example of this order differs so much from others in the form, proportion, and distribution of the various parts of its capital particularly, that it cannot be described in general terms like the Greek Doric and Ionic. The example referred to in the definition is that of the so- called Jupiter Stator, the most elegant, perhaps, of all the Roman specimens (Plate XIV. ex. 1). The entablature varies in different examples from one diameter and seven-eighths to more than two diameters and a half in height. Perhaps the best proportioned are those of the portico of the Partheon (Plate XIV. ex. 4) and of the temple of Antoninus and Faustina (Plate XIV. ex. 3), the former being rather more than two diameters and a quarter, and the latter rather less than that ratio. The entablature of the Jupiter Stator example is more than two diameters and a half in height, of which the cornice alone occupies one-sixth more than a full diameter, leaving to the frieze and architrave somewhat less than one diameter and a half between them. In this latter par ticular it nearly agrees with the other two quoted examples, so that the great difference in the general height is in the cornice almost alone, the cornices of the others being about a sixth less, instead of as much more, than a diameter in height. The Roman Corinthian entablature may be taken, then, at two diameters and a quarter in height. Rather more than three-fifths of this is nearly equally divided between the architrave and frieze, the advantage, if any, being given to the former ; the cornice, of course, takes the remaining two-fifths, or thereabouts. The architrave is divided into three unequal fasciae and a small congeries of mouldings, separating it from the frieze. The first fascia is one-fifth the whole height ; one-third of what remains is given to the second, and the remainder is divided between the third fascia and the band of mouldings, two- thirds to the former, and one to the latter. A bead, some times plain and sometimes carved, taken from the second fascia, which is itself enriched in the Jupiter Stator example, marks its projection over the first ; and a small cyma-reversa, carved or plain as the bead may be, taken from the third fascia, marks its projection over the second. The band consists of a bead, a cyma-reversa, carved or plain according to the general character of the ordinance, and a fillet. In non-accordance with the practice of the Greeks, the face of the lowest or first fascia of the archi trave, in the Roman Corinthian, impends the face of the column at the top of the shaft, cr at its smallest diameter ; and every face inclines inwards from its lowest face up. The whole projection of the architrave, that of the covering fillet of the band, is nearly equal to the height of the first fascia. The frieze impends the lowest angle of the architrave. Its face is either perpendicular, or it slightly inclines inwards, like the fasciae of that part of the entab lature : in some cases it is quite plain, and in others is enriched with a foliated composition, or with sculptures in low or half relief. The cornice consists of a deep bed- mould, variously proportioned to the corona; but it may be taken generally, when it has modillions, at three-fifths, and when it has none, at one-half of the whole height. It is composed of a bead, an ovolo or cyma-reversa, and a fillet, a plain vertical member, sometimes dentilled, another bead, and a cyma-reversa, with fillet or ovolo. as the lower may not be ; this is surmounted, when modillions are used, by another plain member, with a small carved cyma-reversa above it. On this the modillions are placed, and the cyma breaks round them. They are about as wide as the mem ber from which they project, and are about two thicknesses! apart. In form they are horizontal trusses or consoles, with a wavy profile, finishing at one end in a large, and at the other in a small volute; and under each there is generally placed a raffled or acanthus leaf. In proportion-