
; 
98 ARCHITECTURE. 
in the choice of columns, cornices, and ornaments, and too often the most — 
unfitting details are united to a whole which seems then only a patchwork, 
in which all harmonious arrangement is wanting. The artists felt this when 
art gradually awoke from its long sleep, and they perceived the need of 
again investigating the old rules of art. They had no other material upon 
which to base their researches than the remains of those ancient buildings 
that were then in tolerable preservation, and we hence find such artists as _ 
Raphael and Michel Angelo zealously busying themselves to form their taste 
upon the antique monuments, and to measure and draw their details. They - 
were afterwards imitated by such architects as Palladio, Serlio, Alberti, 
Scamozzi, and Vignola, and so gradually arose from the study of the old 
monuments the five orders, the Tuscan, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and 
Roman or Composite. But as those artists did not extend their re- 
searches beyond Italy, we might even say beyond the immediate pre- 
cincts of Rome, we find in them references only to the Roman style of 
building, and the Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders of the Greeks are 
altogether disregarded. 
Although the organization of the orders as such is truly the work of the 
age of the Renaissance, and although the results of the investigations of 
Vignola, as well as of his co-laborers. Palladio, Serlio, and Scamozzi, 
who lived in the 16th century, ought to be mentioned in their chronological 
order, yet it seems proper to consider the various orders in this place, 
as they appear to have been the result of the profound study of the architec- 
tural remains of Roman antiquity. 
Although the various orders as they were classified by these four archi- 
tects often differ materially, according to the artistic knowledge and taste of 
the designer, or according to his predilection for a special monument, yet 
in the following remarks we shall confine ourselves to the orders of Vignola. 
They have for centuries, by universal consent, taken precedence of those 
of the other authorities, and were even the only ones considered classic 
by architects, until a better acquaintance with the architecture of ancient 
Greece proved the existence of something higher in art than Roman 
architecture. 
To an order belongs, 1, the column, with its base and capital; 2, the 
entablature, consisting of architrave, frieze, and cornice; 3, the pedestal ; 
4, the parts necessary to the arches between the columns, that is, the 
impost with its cornice, the arch with its mouldings, and the inter- 
columniation. We shall describe these various parts in each of the orders. 
The measure of which we avail ourselves in the account of the single 
parts of the orders is the modulus, that is, half the diameter of the 
lower part of the column, an absolute measure, inasmuch as it may 
be employed upon every column, whether large or small, provided its 
lower diameter be known. The module of the order may be found 
when the whole height has been determined. Thus, for example, the 
Tuscan column has in height 14 modules, and with pedestal and enta- 
blature 21 modules, 9 parts (pl. 20, jig. 1). We remark here that the 
module is divided, according to Vignola, into 12 parts, and each part into 
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