Page:Ware - The American Vignola, 1920.djvu/44

34 The Triglyphs in the Frieze are shorter and broader than in the Roman Doric, and are set flush with the Architrave below, the Metopes being set back. They are also thicker than those in the Roman Orders, and the channels are much larger, being one-fourth wider,—measuring two-ninths, or four-eighteenths, of the width of the Triglyph instead of one-sixth, or three eighteenths,—and also deeper. The half channels on the edges go back at an angle of 45 degrees, and the two whole channels generally at 60 degrees, the cross-section being thus an equilateral triangle cutting deeply into the face of the Triglyph; they run nearly up to the broad Fillet, or Band, that constitutes the Cap of the Triglyph. This is only as wide as the Triglyph itself, not breaking round the corners, and it is= not continued between the Triglyphs, the Cap of the Metopes being narrower.

As in Vignola's Denticulated Doric, the Mutules on the Soffit of the Corona slope up, and have only eighteen Guttæ, and they occur over the Metopes as well as over the Triglyphs, Fig. 120. The Mutules are thicker than those in the Denticulated Doric, though not so thick as in the Mutulary. The Cymatium generally consists of an elliptical Ovolo and a Fillet, the Soffit of which is beveled. But different examples vary in almost every one of these particulars.

At the corner of a building the Triglyphs are set, not over the axis of the Column, but at the extreme end of the Frieze, two coming together and making a solid block. As the Metopes do not vary in size, being nearly square, this brings the three corner columns nearer together than the others.

In the best Greek examples the axes of the columns all slope in a little, so that the corner column, which is a little bigger than the others, has its inner face nearly vertical. The horizontal lines, both of the Entablature and of the Stylobate, curve slightly, being convex up, the vertical faces incline a little, either out or in, and the moldings are, as has been said, generally elliptical or hyperbolic in section, rather than arcs of circles.

The columns vary in height from about five to eight Diameters, the earlier ones being the shortest, and the Entasis, or Curvature in the outline of the Shaft, and the Diminution in the width of the Shaft, from bottom to top, which sometimes amounts to one-third of the Diameter, are much more pronounced in the earlier examples than in the later ones, Fig. 121. This seems to show that the original of the Doric column was not a wooden post, as has been thought, nor a pile of masonry, but was probably a piece of rubble work, covered, like the rubble walls, with stucco.