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The Corinthian order (, Korinthiakós rythmós; ) is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal of Ancient Greek architecture and Roman architecture. The other two are the Doric order, which was the earliest, followed by the Ionic order. In Ancient Greek architecture, the Corinthian order follows the Ionic in almost all respects, other than the capitals of the columns, though this changed in Roman architecture.Lawrence, 85; Summerson, 124, 176
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 to see the Ionic ("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. The flat abacus at the top of the capital has a concave curve on each face, and usually a single flower ("rosette") projecting from the leaves below overlaps it on each face.
When classical architecture was revived during the Renaissance, two more orders were added to the : the Tuscan order and the Composite order, known in Roman times, but regarded as a grand imperial variant of the Corinthian. The Corinthian has fluted and elaborate capitals decorated with acanthus leaves and scrolls. There are many variations.
The name Corinthian is derived from the ancient Greek city of Ancient Corinth, although it was probably invented in Athens.Summerson, 124
Its earliest use can be traced back to the Late Classical Period (430–323 BC). The earliest Corinthian capitals, already in fragments and now lost, were found in Bassae in 1811–12; they are dated around 420 BC, and are in a temple of Apollo otherwise using the Ionic. There were three of them, carrying the frieze across the far end of the cella, which was open to the adytum. The Corinthian was probably devised to solve the awkwardness the Ionic capital created at corners by having clear and distinct front or back and side-on faces,Lawrence, 179 (Plate 80) a problem only finally solved by Vincenzo Scamozzi in the 16th century.
A simplified late version of the Greek Corinthian capital is often known as the "Tower of the Winds Corinthian" after its use on the porches of the Tower of the Winds in Athens (about 50 BC). There is a single row of acanthus leaves at the bottom of the capital, with a row of "tall, narrow leaves" behind.Lawrence, 237 These cling tightly to the swelling shaft, and are sometimes described as "lotus" leaves, as well as the vague "water-leaves" and palm leaves; their similarity to leaf forms on many ancient Egyptian capitals has been remarked on.Brown, 232; Fergusson, James, The Illustrated Handbook of Architecture, Vol 2, p. 273, 1855, John Murray, google books The form is usually found in smaller columns, both ancient and modern.
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 foot while the column height itself is a multiple of 5. In its proportions, the Corinthian column is similar to the Ionic order, though it is more slender, and 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. Corinthian columns were erected on the top level of the Roman Colosseum, holding up the least weight, and also having the slenderest ratio of thickness to height. Their height to width ratio is about 10:1.
One variant is the Tivoli order, found at the Temple of Vesta, Tivoli. The Tivoli order's Corinthian capital has two rows of acanthus leaves and its abacus is decorated with oversize fleurons in the form of hibiscus flowers with pronounced spiral pistils. The column flutes have flat tops. The frieze exhibits fruit suspended between bucrania. Above each festoon has a rosette over its center. The cornice does not have modillions.
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 Gautama Buddha or , usually as central figures surrounded, and often in the shade, of the luxurious foliage of Corinthian designs.
The Corinthian architrave is divided in two or three sections, which may be equal, or may bear interesting proportional relationships, to one with another. 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. At the Capitol the proportions of architrave to frieze are exactly 1:1. Above that, the profiles of the cornice mouldings 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, and 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. In French, these are called chandelles and sometimes terminate in carved wisps of flame, or with bellflowers. Alternatively, beading or chains of husks may take the place of the fillets in the fluting, Corinthian being the most flexible of the orders, with more opportunities for variation.
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 classifying French painter Nicolas Poussin wrote to his friend Fréart de Chantelou in 1642:
The beautiful girls whom you will have seen in Nîmes will not, I am sure, have delighted your spirit any less than the beautiful columns of Maison Carrée for the one is no more than an old copy of the other.Quoted by Kenneth Clark, The Nude: A Study in Ideal Form, 1956, p. 45.
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 Corinthian 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.Chambers, A Treatise on the Decorative Part of Civil Architecture (Joseph Gwilt ed, 1825:pp 159–61).
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 followAlison Burford ( The Greek Temple Builders at Epidauros, Liverpool, 1969, p. 65) suggests instead that it was spoilt in the carving, one volute being incorrectly detached from its field; Hugh Plommer, reviewing it for The Classical Review (New Series, 21.2 June, pp 269–272), remarks that the error involved an excess of work and remains convinced that the capital was a model. 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 () 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.Vitr. 4.1.9-10
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. 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.
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 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 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 Romanesque and Gothic architecture, where the Classical system had been replaced by a new aesthetic composed of arched vaults springing from columns, the Corinthian capital was still retained. It might be severely plain, as in the typical Cistercian architecture, which encouraged no distraction from liturgy and ascetic contemplation, or in other contexts it could be treated to numerous fanciful variations, even on the capitals of a series of columns or within the same system.
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); I quattro libri dell'architettura of Andrea Palladio, and Vincenzo Scamozzi's L'idea dell'architettura universale, were followed in the 17th century by French treatises with further refined engraved models, such as Perrault's.
File:Fig 1 The capital and entablature of the portico before the door Fig 2 A fragment of the Dentells belonging to the corni - Stuart James & Revett Nicholas - 1762.jpg|Ancient Greek Corinthian order of the Tower of the Winds, Athens, 50 BC
File:Petra detail of Al Khazneh (The treasury) 1796.jpg|Roman Corinthian capital of Al-Khazneh, Petra, Jordan, decorated with acanthuses and , early 1st century AD
File:Detail of Corner Khazneh Petra Jordan1169.jpg|Roman Corinthian pilaster in a corner of Al-Khazneh
File:Buddha with monks.jpg|Group of Buddha seated between two monks, with two quasi-Corinthian pilasters that are here because of the influence of Greek culture during the Hellenistic period, 1st-3rd centuries, stone, State Museum of History of Uzbekistan, Tashkent
File:Les edifices antiques de Rome 1779 (138343262).jpg|Roman Corinthian capital of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, Rome, with intertwining central stems, 1st century Attica 06-13 Athens 24 Arch of Hadrian.jpg|Roman Corinthian columns and of the Arch of Hadrian, Athens, 131 or 132 AD Jerash Artemis Temple 0841.jpg|Roman Corinthian columns from the Temple of Artemis, Jerash, Jordan, 150 AD Rom, Basilika Santa Sabina, Innenansicht.jpg|The Constantinian basilica of Santa Sabina interior, with spolia Corinthian columns from the Temple of Juno Regina Ravenna Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo capitel.jpg|Byzantine quasi-Corinthian capital in Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy, 6th century File:Abadía de Saint-Germain-des-Prés, París, Francia, 2022-11-01, DD 20-22 HDR.jpg|Romanesque quasi-Corinthian columns in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, 8th century, restored in the 19th century with original polychromy
File:Capital with the name of the builder ‘Abd ar Raḥmān III, and of the stonemason Fatḥ, mid-10th century, marble, from Andalusia (Madīnat az-Zahrā’), Inv. no. 5053, Pergamon Museum.jpg|Islamic quasi-Corinthian capital from Andalusia (Madīnat az-Zahrā’), present-day Spain, mid-10th century, marble, Pergamon Museum, Berlin
Tournus (71) Abbatiale Saint-Philibert - Intérieur - Chapiteau - 13.jpg|Romanesque quasi-Corinthian capital, Church of St. Philibert, Tournus, France, 1008 to mid-11th century
File:Sala dei gigli, capitello 01.JPG|Renaissance reinterpretation of the Corinthian order, with a capital with Venus and Eros, in the Sala dei Gigli, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence, Italy, by Benedetto da Maiano, 1476–1481.
File:Santa-Maria-dei-Miracoli Main Portal.JPG|Renaissance Corinthian pilasters of the entrance of the Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Venice, by Pietro Lombardo, 1481–1489
File:Santa Maria del Popolo Presbyterium Grabmal Ascanio Sforza.JPG|Renaissance Corinthian columns of the Tomb of Ascanio Maria Sforza, Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome, by Andrea Sansovino, 1505
File:Switzerland-03129 - Kindlifresserbrunnen (23573862711).jpg|Polychrome Renaissance column of the Kindlifresserbrunnen, Bern, Switzerland, by Hans Gieng, 1545-1546
San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane - Dome.jpg|Baroque Corinthian column capitals in the San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Rome, by Francesco Borromini, 1638–1677 Versailles Chapel - July 2006 edit.jpg|Baroque Corinthian columns in the Chapel of the Palace of Versailles, 1696–1710 ÖNB 8.jpg|Stylized Baroque Corinthian columns in the Austrian National Library, Hofburg, Vienna, Austria, designed by Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach in 1716–1720, built in 1723–1726
File:Schouw met putto Schouwen (serietitel), RP-P-1949-395-4.jpg|Rococo reinterpretations of the Corinthian order in an design for an interior, by Franz Xaver Habermann, 1731–1775, etching on paper, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
File:Altaar met God de Vader Altaren (serietitel), RP-P-1964-1453.jpg|Rococo reinterpretations of the Corinthian order in an altar design, with asymmetric capitals and more sinuous S-shaped acanthuses, by Franz Xaver Habermann, 1740–1745, etching on paper, Rijksmuseum
Wieskirche, Gemeinde Steingaden Ortsteil Wies.JPG|Rococo reinterpretations of the Corinthian order in the Wieskirche, Steingaden, Germany, by Dominikus and Johann Baptist Zimmermann, 1746-1754 file:BasilikaOttobeurenHochaltar02.JPG|Rococo reinterpretations of the Corinthian order at the high altar in the Ottobeuren Abbey of Ottobeuren, Germany, by Johann Michael Fischer, 1748-1754
File:Paris 9 - 11 cité Malesherbes -1.JPG|Renaissance Revival polychrome ceramic Corinthian pilasters of Cité Malesherbes no. 11 (lower story), Paris, architect Antoine Anatole Jal and painter Pierre-Jules Jollivet, 1858
File:Lyon 5e - Cimetière de Loyasse - Allée 18 - Tombe de Claude Bonnefond - Sculpture et médaillon.jpg|Neoclassical reinterpretation of the Corinthian capital at the Grave of Claude Bonnefond, Loyasse Cemetery, Lyon, France, designed by Antoine-Marie Chenavard and sculpted by Guillaume Bonnet, 1860 Detail of the principal facade of the Opéra Garnier, 23 March 2010.jpg|Beaux Arts Corinthian columns on the facade of the Palais Garnier, Paris, by Charles Garnier, 1861–1874
File:Pedestal from the drawing room of the William H. Vanderbilt House MET DT5417.jpg|Pair of pedestals that reinterpret the Corinthian order (not just the capital, also the shaft), from the drawing room of the William H. Vanderbilt House, 1879–1882, Egyptian alabaster, gilt brass, and red glass jewels, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City
File:Bowling Green NYC Feb 2021 53.jpg|Greek Revival Corinthian columns of the Bowling Green Offices Building, New York City, a mix of those of the Tower of the Winds and those of the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates, by W. & G. Audsley, 1895–1898
File:Palace of Fine Arts-21.jpg|Beaux-Arts reinterpretation of the Corinthian order at the Rotunda of the Palace of Fine Arts, San Francisco, US, with a full figure on the capital, egg-and-dart on the astragal that is just under the capital, and two extra smaller volutes and a handle-like element on the canonic volutes of the capital corner, by Bernard Maybeck, 1913–1915 File:Exhibition of Japanese Government-General Building Remains 04.JPG|Corinthian capital from the Japanese General Government Building, 1926, unknown type of stone, Independence Hall of Korea, Cheonan, South Korea File:Philadelphia Museum of Art, main building.jpg|Neoclassical polychrome Corinthian columns, entablature and pediment of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, US, by Horace Trumbauer and Zantzinger, Borie & Medary, 1933
File:PiazzaDItalia1990.jpg|Postmodern Corinthian columns of the Piazza d'Italia, New Orleans, US, by Charles Moore, 1978–1979
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