Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 05.djvu/239

COLUMBUS. founded a school of mathematics and education at Seville. His library of more than 12,000 volumes he left to the chapter of the cathedral at Seville. Ferdinand is best known as the probable author of a life of his father, upon which all subsequent biographies of Christopher Columbus have been based. We possess this work only in the form of the Italian translation published at Venice in 1571, the original having been lost. Ferdinand's claim to the authorship of this biography has been denied by eminent authorities and just as warmly defended; the question is still a mooted one.

COLUMBUS BARKACKS. A United States militar.y post established in 1803, and originally an arsenal. The reservation embraces 77 acres, and is one mile from Columbus, Ohio, which is the nearest railroad station. It is an important recruiting rendervous for the United Stiites Army and contains quarters for 25 officers and 8 companies of infantry.

COL'UMEL'LA (Lat., dim. of coliimna, col- umn). A descriptive term employed in several groups of plants, but especially in mosses and molds. It refers to an axis-like structure aris- ing in the centre of a sporangium, so that the spores are forced to lie along its sides.

COLUMELLA, Lucirs Junius Modebatus. The most learned of Roman writers on practical agricultui-e. He was born at Gades (Cadiz), in Spain, and flourished in the earlier part of the first century of the Christian Era. For some time he resided in Syria, but lived. chielly at Rome, and died, most probably, at Tarentum. His great work, De Re Eustica, in twelve books — the tenth. On Gardeniiifi, is versified — is ad- dressed to one Pviblius Silvinus, and treats of arable and pasture lands, culture of vines, olives, etc., care of domestic animals, respective duties of masters and servants, and the like. A supple- mentary treatise relates to trees. This ancient Book of the Farm is written in good Latin, and the information is copious, though in some points of questionable accuracy. The best edition of Columella is by Sclmeider, in Scriptores liei Riisticcr. (Leipzig, 1784-97).

COLUMN (from Lat. columna. column, con- nected with AS. hohti, island). A pillar or post, usually cylindrical in form, made of any mate- rial, such as wood, stone, brick, or iron, and used as a support, either real or apparent. In the historic architectural styles the column has held a most important position, often determin- ing botli aesthetic and constructive forms. It is used in connection both with the arch and the architrave. Strictly speaking, a column should consist of a shaft, circular in plan, and sur- mounted by a distinct capital, and it should rest on a base. Exceptionally, as in the Doric style, the base is omitted. Throughout antiquity the column wns used mainly as a constructive mem- ber, and only exceptionally as a decorative fea- ture ; but in the Middle Ages the column formed a large part of the rich system of decora- lion. Xormally. columns stand free and singly, at regular intervals, supporting a superstruc- ture, hut there are many variations of such a type. (1) The half or three-quarter column, en- gaged in a pier or wall, came into use at quite an earlv date — in Egypt, for example — entered the domain of architecture permanently in the Roman style, and has been common ever since. (2) The grouping of columns by twos or even threes hard- ly obtained generally until the Middle Ages, when it was a special feature of cloisters. (3) The simple circular plan was changed for a cluster of shafts in many styles — Assyro-Baby- lonian, Egyptian, and especially media'val, when the grouped columnar pier was most character- istic. (4) Honorary columns were quite uncon"- nected with any structure, and were at first en- tirely religious in significance, like the two col- umns in front of the Temple of .Jerusalem (.Jakin and Boaz), those in connection with I'ho'nician and other Oriental and even i'elasgic sanctua- ries, and the many erected in Hellenic coun- tries surmounted by figures or symbols of the gods. Afterwards they were used to com- memorate the achievements of men, especially by the Romans, who surmounted them with hon- orary statxies, the most famous being those of Trajan, Marcus Aurelius. and Antoninus Pius in Rome, of Arcadius and Theodosius in Constanti- nople, of Pompey in Alexandria, and the Ven- dome column in Paris.

The shafts of columns were sometimes mono- liths, of a single piece, or built up of superposed drums, or with a core of different material from the face. The first was the favorite form of the Romans, the second of the Greeks, the third of the Assyro-Babylonians and Etruscans, of whom the former sheathed a wooden core with metal, while the latter did it with terracotta — a method not unknown to the early Greeks. The materials almost imiversally used throughout historic times have been stone and marble. It is idle to speculate as to tlie origin of the stone or brick colimm and whether it goes back to a wooden original. It is certainly true that in the history of Greek architecture the wooden columH was a primitive form, as is attested in the Temple of Hera at Olympia, as well as in literary traditions.

Columnar architecture played a very subor- dinate role in the vaulted Assyro-Babylonian style, and appears only in lighter and smaller structures, such as shrines, in antis, and in deli- cate second-story superstructures, where the shafts were often carried on the backs of sphinxes or lions and surmounted by proto-Ionic or bulbous capitals. The proportions approach more closely to the Hellenic than in Egypt. The Egyptians were the first to utilize columns on a grand scale, especially in the great hypostyle halls of their temples, as early as the Eleventh Dynasty (e.2500 B.C.). They used a great vari- ety of designs and proportions, so that they can hardly be said to have had orders or canons of proportions, though the shafts were almost in- variably heavy, their height varying only from about three to five times their diameter. The shaft usually rests upon a plain, low. circular base, in the form of a plinth, immediately above which it often takes on a pronounced swelling or entasis. Its surface, even when a smooth cylin- der, is almost always decorated with l)rilliantly colored and cava rilievo ornaments, in the form of hieroglyphs, patterns, or religioirs symbols. Often, instead of a smooth cylinder, the shaft is in the form of a bunch of palm or lotus stalks, banded together at intervals by bands of rings, and surmounted by a palm or lotus flower cap- ital, or campaniform capital, on which a square plinth is u>ually superposed. Another form of shaft, popular only in the middle period