Corinthian order
The oldest known example of a Corinthian column is in the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae in Arcadia, ca 450-420 BCE. It is not part of the order of the temple itself, which has a Doric colonnade surrounding the termple and an Ionic order within the cella enclosure. A single Corinthian column stands free, centered within the cella. Quite mysterious, and the archaeologists debate what it is all about: perhaps 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 documented use of the Corinthian order on the exterior of a structure, is the circular Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, erected ca 334 BCE
The Corinthian order really came into its own in Roman practice, however, as at the Maison Carree, Nimes(illustration, right).
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 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.
During the 16th century, a sequence of engravings of the orders in architectural treatises helped standardize their details within rigid limits. Sebastiano Serlio; the Regola delli cinque ordini of Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola (1507-1573); the Quattro libri di Architettura of Andrea Palladio, and Vincenzo Scamozzi’s Idea della Architettura Universale, were followed in the 17th century by French treatises with further refined engraved models, such as Perrault’s.