ARCHITECTURE. 
lumtis at the bottom, the face of the archi- 
trave resting on the capital retreats within 
the top of the trunk, as in the Pantheon of 
Agrippa. 
Pilasters are either plain or fluted. In 
ancient edifices this was not always regu- 
lated by the columns, but perhaps depend- 
ed on the taste of the architects, or destina- 
tion of the edifice. The columns are plain 
on the portico of the Pantheon, while the 
pilasters are fluted ; and the contrary, on 
the portico of Septimius Severus. When 
pilasters are fluted, the angles or quoins are 
frequently beaded, such as those of the Pan- 
theon, in order to strengthen the angles, 
and the flutes are generally of a semicircu- 
lar section. The faces of pilasters are some- 
times sunk within a margin, and the pannels 
charged with foliage, arabesque, or gro- 
tesque ornaments, or instruments of music 
and war, or sometimes these compounded, 
according to the destined purpose of the 
place in which they are employed. 
The pannels of the pilasters, in the Arch 
of the Goldsmiths at Rome, are charged 
with winding foliage and trophies of war. 
Pilasters, when placed on the front or out- 
side of a building, should project one quar- 
ter of their breadth at the bottom ; but 
when placed behind a range of columns, or 
in the interior of a building, should not pro- 
ject more than the eighth part of the same 
breadth. 
In a large recess, when two or any even 
number of insulated columns support an en- 
tablature, which terminates at each end 
upon a wall or pier, a pilaster is most com- 
monly placed against each wall or pier, to 
support the extremities of the architrave. 
When the entablature over the columns is 
recessed within the surface of the wall or 
pier at each end, the pilaster projects to- 
wards the column, its thickness is shewn on 
the front, and its breadth faces the void or 
adjacent column : in this case the architrave 
may either profile against the sides of the 
aperture or recess, or it may return at each 
interior angle, and then again at the exte- 
rior angles, and proceed along each wall or 
piers. 
If the intermediate columns and extreme 
pilasters are so ranged as to project a small 
distance beyond the face of the wall at 
each end, the pilasters shew the same 
breadth towards the front as towards the 
void, and the entablature may be continued 
unbroken, as in the chapels of the Pantheon, 
and if it breaks it must be at the extreihe 
VOL. I. 
or most distant angles. Pilasters are of 
great strength to a wall, as well as ornamen- 
tal to the building ; they are less expensive 
than columns, and in situations where they 
are either placed behind a range of columns, 
or support the extremes of an entablature 
across an opening, they are more concor- 
dant with the walls to which they are at- 
tached. 
Clustered pilasters, or those which have 
both exterior and interior angles, and the 
planes of those angles parallel and perpen- 
dicular to the front, may be executed with 
good effect, when the order is plain, as in 
the Tuscan : but in the three Grecian and 
Composite orders, this junction should be 
avoided as much as possible, because the 
triglyphs and capitals of these orders always 
meet imperfectly in the interior angles. The 
same may also be said of Ionic and Corin- 
thian capitals of half pilasters, meeting each 
other in the interior angles of rooms. In 
the Ionic order it becomes necessary to 
make a difference between the capitals of 
pilasters and those of columns ; for, in the 
capitals of the columns the projection of the 
ovolo is greater than that of the volutes ; 
but as the horizontal section of the ovolo is 
circular, the ovolo itself is bent behind the 
hem or border of the volutes: now sup- 
posing a vertical section through the axis of 
the column to be perpendicular to the face, 
and another through the middle of the 
breadth of the pilaster, and that the cor- 
responding mouldings are equal and similar 
in both sections; then, because the hori- 
zontal section through the ovolo is rectan- 
gular, as in the trunk, the ovolo would, if 
continued, pass over the volutes, or must 
terminate abruptly and shew the profile of 
the moulding, which is a palpable defect. 
This therefore renders it necessary to give 
the ovolo so much convexity on the front, 
as to make its extremes retire, and pass be- 
hind the back of the border of' the volutes ; 
or to make the ovolo of small projection ; 
or to twist the volutes from a plain surface, 
which the ancient Ionic has, and make 
every part of the spirals project more and 
more towards the eye ; or lastly, to project 
the whole abacus, with the volutes, beyond 
the projection of the ovolo. The same 
thing is also to be observed with regard to 
the Corinthian and Composite capitals, 
where the upper part of the vase projects 
beyond the middle of the abacus, and would, 
in the pilaster capitals, pass over the facf s 
of the spirals or volutes. 
Y 
