THE CORINTHIAN ORDER

*The Corinthian order is the last developed of the three principal classical orders of ancient
Greek and Roman architecture.

*The Corinthian, with its offshoot the Composite, is stated to be the most ornate (decorative) of
the orders, characterized by slender fluted columns and elaborate capitals decorated with acanthus
leaves and scrolls.

*The name "Corinthian" is derived from the ancient Greek city of Corinth
 PARTS
The Corinthian order is the most decorative and is usually the one most modern people like
best. Corinthian also uses entasis to make the shafts look straight. The Corinthian capitals have flowers
and leaves below a small scroll. The shaft has flutes and the base is like the Ionian. Unlike the Doric and
Ionian cornices, which are at a slant, the Corinthian roofs are flat.

torus - Molding in the shape of a large ring, located at the base of the column.

Modillion - Ornamental motif placed under the corona of the cornice.

dentil - Rectangular ornament in relief.

rosette - Ornamental motif inspired by a plant and used to decorate the capital.

volute - Ornament sculpted in spirals.

 acanthus - Decorative pattern characterized by a series of carved leaves whose rounded top is in
relief.

astragal - Molding that separates the capital of the column from the shaft.

flute - Vertical groove along the length of the column.

fillet - Flat surface between the flutes.

middle torus - Molding separating two tori.

scotia - Concave molding located at the base of the column.

Crepidoma - Base upon which the building rests; it is composed of several levels.

base - Lower part of the column, on which the shaft rests.

Column - Circular pillar supporting the entablature; it is composed of three parts: the base, the
shaft and the capital.

Shaft - Fluted part of the column, located between the base and the capital.

Capital - Top of the column supporting the entablature.

Architrave - Lower section of the entablature, directly on top of the capitals of the columns.

Entablature - Section composed of the architrave, the frieze and the cornice; it supports the
pediment.

Pediment - Triangular section above the entablature.

 HISTORY
The oldest known example of a Corinthian column is in the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae
in Arcadia, c. 450420 BC. It is not part of the order of the temple itself, which has a Doric colonnade
surrounding the temple and an Ionic order within the cella enclosure. A single Corinthian column stands
free, centered within the cella. This is a mysterious feature, and archaeologists debate what this shows:
some state that it is simply an example of a votive column. A few examples of Corinthian columns in
Greece during the next century are all used inside temples. A more famous example, and the first
document`ted use of the Corinthian order on the exterior of a structure, is the circular Choragic
Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, erected c. 334 BC.

A Corinthian capital carefully buried in antiquity in the foundations of the circular tholos at
Epidaurus was recovered during modern archaeological campaigns. Its enigmatic presence and
preservation have been explained as a sculptor's model for stonemasons to follow in erecting the
temple dedicated to Asclepius.

*The architectural design of the building was credited in antiquity to the sculptor Polykleitos the
Younger, son of the Classical Greek sculptor Polykleitos the Elder. The temple was erected in the 4th
century BC. These capitals, in one of the most-visited sacred sites of Greece, influenced later Hellenistic
and Roman designs for the Corinthian order. The concave sides of the abacus meet at a sharp keel edge,
easily damaged, which in later and post-Renaissance practice has generally been replaced by a canted
corner. Behind the scrolls the spreading cylindrical form of the central shaft is plainly visible.

*Much later, the Roman writer Vitruvius (c. 75 BC c. 15 BC) related that the Corinthian order
had been invented by Callimachus, a Greek architect and sculptor who was inspired by the sight of a
votive basket that had been left on the grave of a young girl. A few of her toys were in it, and a square
tile had been placed over the basket, to protect them from the weather. An acanthus plant had grown
through the woven basket, mixing its spiny, deeply cut leaves with the weave of the basket.

Claude Perrault incorporated a vignette epitomizing the Callimachus tale in his illustration of the
Corinthian order for his translation of Vitruvius, published in Paris, 1684 (illustration, left). Perrault
demonstrates in his engraving how the proportions of the carved capital could be adjusted according to
demands of the design, without offending. The texture and outline of Perrault's leaves is dry and tight
compared to their 19th-century naturalism at the U.S. Capitol (below, left). A Corinthian capital may be
seen as an enriched development of the Ionic capital, though one may have to look closely at a
Corinthian capital (illustration, right) to see the Ionic volutes ("helices"), at the corners, perhaps reduced
in size and importance, scrolling out above the two ranks of stylized acanthus leaves and stalks
("cauliculi" or caulicoles), eight in all, and to notice that smaller volutes scroll inwards to meet each
other on each side. The leaves may be quite stiff, schematic and dry, or they may be extravagantly
drilled and undercut, naturalistic and spiky. In Late Antique and Byzantine practice, the leaves may be
blown sideways, as if by the wind of Faith. Unlike the Doric and Ionic column capitals, a Corinthian
capital has no neck beneath it, just a ring-like astragal molding or a banding that forms the base of the
capital, recalling the base of the legendary basket.

Most buildings (and most clients) are satisfied with just two orders. When orders are
superposed one above another, as they are at the Flavian Amphitheater the Colosseum the natural
progression is from sturdiest and plainest (Doric) at the bottom, to slenderest and richest (Corinthian) at
the top. The Colosseum's topmost tier has an unusual order that came to be known as the Composite
order during the 16th century. The mid-16th-century Italians, especially Sebastiano Serlio and Jacopo
Barozzi da Vignola, who established a canonic version of the orders, thought they detected a
"Composite order", combining the volutes of the Ionic with the foliage of the Corinthian, but in Roman
practice volutes were almost always present.

In comparison to the intellectual and even spiritual encodings that make the Doric and Ionic
orders and their Egyptian forebears so resonant, the origins of the Corinthian order, the last of the three
classical orders to emerge from Antiquity, is much more clear and its symbolic meaning much more self-
evident.

The oldest known Corinthian column was found in the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae in
Arcadia, built by the architect Iktinos (who with Kallikrates designed the Parthenon) and dated to circa
420 BC. Curiously, the temple itself (above, an old photograph, before it was roofed for restoration) is
Doric, with the Ionic employed within the cella, where a single, freestanding Corinthian column held
pride of place. This unusual placement indicates that the column was likely meant to be a votive column
and also makes the temple unique in that its architecture boasts all three of the Ancient orders.

The origin of the Corinthian Order, illustrated in Claude

Perrault's Vitruvius, 1684
 CORINTHIAN ORDER
Greek Corinthian order

The Corinthian order is named for the Greek city-state of Corinth, to which it was connected in the
period. However, according to the architectural historian Vitruvius, the column was created by the
sculptor Callimachus, probably an Athenian, who drew acanthus leaves growing around a votive basket.
Its earliest use can be traced back to the Late Classical Period (430-323 BC). The earliest Corinthian
capital was found in Bassae, dated at 427 BC. It is sometimes called the feminine order because it is on
the top level of the Colosseum and holding up the least weight, and also has the slenderest ratio of
thickness to height. Height to width ratio is about 10:1.

Roman Corinthian order

Proportion is a defining characteristic of the Corinthian order: the "coherent integration of dimensions
and ratios in accordance with the principles of symmetria" are noted by Mark Wilson Jones, who finds
that the ratio of total column height to column-shaft height is in a 6:5 ratio, so that, secondarily, the full
height of column with capital is often a multiple of 6 Roman feet while the column height itself is a
multiple of 5. In its proportions, the Corinthian column is similar to the Ionic column, though it may be
made more slender, but it stands apart by its distinctive carved capital. The abacus upon the capital has
concave sides to conform to the outscrolling corners of the capital, and it may have a rosette at the
center of each side.

Figure of the Buddha, within a Corinthian capital, Gandhara, 34th century, Musee Guimet.

Gandharan capitals

Indo-Corinthian capitals are capitals crowning columns or pilasters, which can be found in the
northwestern Indian subcontinent, and usually combine Hellenistic and Indian elements. These capitals
are typically dated to the 1st centuries of our era, and constitute important elements of Greco-Buddhist
art of Gandhara.

The classical design was often adapted, usually taking a more elongated form, and sometimes being
combined with scrolls, generally within the context of Buddhist stupas and temples. Indo-Corinthian
capitals also incorporated figures of the Buddha or Bodhisattvas, usually as central figures surrounded,
and often in the shade, of the luxurious foliage of Corinthian designs.

Renaissance Corinthian order

During the first flush of the Italian Renaissance, the Florentine architectural theorist Francesco di Giorgio
expressed the human analogies that writers who followed Vitruvius often associated with the human
form, in squared drawings he made of the Corinthian capital overlaid with human heads, to show the
proportions common to both.[3]
The Corinthian order as used in extending the US Capitol in 1854: the column's shaft has been omitted

The origin of the Corinthian Order, illustrated in Claude Perrault's Vitruvius, 1684

Above the plain, unadorned architrave lies the frieze, which may be richly carved with a continuous
design or left plain, as at the U.S. Capitol extension (illustration, left). At the Capitol the proportions of
architrave to frieze are exactly 1:1. Above that, the profiles of the cornice moldings are like those of the
Ionic order. If the cornice is very deep, it may be supported by brackets or modillions, which are
ornamental brackets used in a series under a cornice.

The Corinthian column is almost always fluted. If it is not, it is often worth pausing to unravel the reason
why (sometimes simply a tight budget). Even the flutes of a Corinthian column may be enriched. They
may be filleted, with rods nestled within the hollow flutes, or stop-fluted, with the rods rising a third of
the way, to where the entasis begins. The French like to call these chandelles and sometimes they end
them literally with carved wisps of flame, or with bellflowers. Alternatively, beading or chains of husks
may take the place of the fillets in the fluting, for Corinthian is the most playful and flexible of the
orders. Its atmosphere is rich and festive, with more opportunities for variation than the other orders.

Elaborating upon an offhand remark when Vitruvius accounted for the origin of its acanthus capital, it
became a commonplace to identify the Corinthian column with the slender figure of a young girl; in this
mode the classicizing French painter Nicolas Poussin wrote to his friend Frart de Chantelou in 1642

The beautiful girls whom you will have seen in Nmes will not, I am sure, have delighted your spirit any
less than the beautiful columns of Maison Carre for the one is no more than an old copy of the
other.[4]

Sir William Chambers expressed the conventional comparison with the Doric order:

The proportions of the orders were by the ancients formed on those of the human body, and
consequently, it could not be their intention to make a Corithian column, which, as Vitruvius observes, is
to represent the delicacy of a young girl, as thick and much taller than a Doric one, which is designed to
represent the bulk and vigour of a muscular full grown man.
 EXAMPLES:

Greece

Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, Athens

Temple of Olympian Zeus (Athens)

Rome

Pantheon, Rome (illustration)

Temple of Mars Ultor

France

Maison Carre, Nimes

The July Column, Paris

Portugal

Templo de Diana, vora

Renaissance and Baroque

Neoclassical and Beaux-Arts

United States Capitol (illustration)

St. La Salle Hall, Manila

Enrique M. Razon Sports Center, Manila

Syria

Palmyra

Ukraine

Great Lavra Belltower (fourth tier 8 columns)

United Kingdom

University College London

United States of America

United States Supreme Court Building

Germany

The Reichstag, Berlin

Jordan

Jarash

Jabal al-Qal'a, Amman