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The Tuscan order (Latin Ordo Tuscanicus or Ordo Tuscanus, with the meaning of Etruscan order) is one of the two developed by the Romans, the other being the composite order. It is influenced by the Doric order, but with un-fluted columns and a simpler entablature with no or guttae. While relatively simple columns with round capitals had been part of the vernacular architecture of Italy and much of Europe since at least Etruscan architecture, the Romans did not consider this style to be a distinct Classical order (for example, the Roman architect Vitruvius did not include it alongside his descriptions of the Greek Doric, Ionic order, and Corinthian order orders). Its classification as a separate formal order is first mentioned in Isidore of Seville's 6th-century Etymologiae and refined during the Italian Renaissance.
Sebastiano Serlio described five orders including a "Tuscan order", "the solidest and least ornate", in his fourth bookThe first one published. of Regole generali di architettura sopra le cinque maniere de gli edifici (1537). Though Fra Giocondo had attempted a first illustration of a Tuscan capital in his printed edition of Vitruvius (1511), he showed the capital with an egg and dart enrichment that belonged to the Ionic. The "most rustic" Tuscan order of Serlio was later carefully delineated by Andrea Palladio.
In its simplicity, the Tuscan order is seen as similar to the Doric order, and yet in its overall proportions, intercolumniation and simpler entablature, it follows the ratios of the Ionic. This strong order was considered most appropriate in military architecture and in docks and warehouses when they were dignified by architectural treatment. Serlio found it "suitable to fortified places, such as city gates, fortresses, castles, treasuries, or where artillery and ammunition are kept, prisons, seaports and other similar structures used in war."
Following Serlio's interpretation of Vitruvius (who gives no indication of the column's capital), in the Tuscan order the column had a simpler base—circular rather than squared as in the other orders, where Vitruvius was being followed—and with a simple torus and collar, and the column was unfluted, while both capital and entablature were without adornments. The Vitruvian module was 1:7 in Vitruvius, and in Palladio's illustration for Daniele Barbaro's commentary on Vitruvius), in Vignola's Cinque ordini d'architettura (1562), and in Palladio's I quattro libri dell'architettura (1570).Palladio, Book I. 13.15–21. Serlio alone gives a stockier proportion of 1:6.Ackerman 1983 offers a comparative table of components given by each theorist, figure 1 p. 16. A plain astragal or taenia ringed the column beneath its plain cap.
Palladio agreed in essence with Serlio:
The Tuscan, being rough, is rarely used above ground except in one-storey buildings like villa barns or in huge structures like and the like which, having many orders, can take this one in place of the Doric, under the Ionic. The Four Books on Architecture, Chapter 12
Unlike the other authors Palladio found Roman precedents, of which he named the Verona Arena and the Pula Arena, both of which, James Ackerman points out,Ackerman 1983:22. are arcuated buildings that did not present columns and entablatures. A striking feature is his rusticated frieze resting upon a perfectly plain entablatureAckerman 1983:21 and fig. 9 (of Palladio's woodcut).
Examples of the use of the order are the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne in Rome, by Baldassarre Peruzzi, 1532–1536, and the pronaos portico to Santa Maria della Pace added by Pietro da Cortona (1656–1667).
In a typical usage, at the very grand Palladian house of Wentworth Woodhouse in Yorkshire, which is mainly Corinthian, the stable court of 1768 uses Tuscan. Another English house, West Wycombe Park, has a loggia facade in two storeys with Tuscan on the ground floor and Corinthian above. This recalls Palladio's Palazzo Chiericati, which uses Ionic over Doric.
The Neue Wache is a Greek Revival guardhouse in Berlin, by Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1816). Though in most respects the Greek temple frontage is a careful exercise in revivalism, there are minimal plain bases to the thick fluted columns and, despite having metope reliefs and a large group of sculpture in the pediment, there are no triglyphs or guttae. Nonetheless, despite these "Tuscan" aspects, the overall impression is strongly Greek and it is rightly always described as "Doric".
Tuscan is often used for doorways and other entrances where only a pair of columns are required, and using another order might seem pretentious. Because the Tuscan mode is easily worked up by a carpenter with a few planing tools, it became part of the vernacular Georgian style that lingered in places like New England and Ohio deep into the 19th century. In gardening, "carpenter's Doric" which is Tuscan, provides simple elegance to gate posts and fences in many traditional garden contexts.
File:Brera Patio 04.JPG|Baroque Tuscan columns in the courtyard of the Palazzo Brera, Milan, by Francesco Maria Richini, 17th century
File:Christ Church exterior, Spitalfields, London, UK - Diliff.jpg|Baroque Tuscan columns of the Christ Church, London, by Nicholas Hawksmoor, 1714–1729
File:Paris - Hôtel du Châtelet - 127 rue de Grenelle - 001.jpg|Neoclassical Tuscan columns of the Hôtel du Châtelet (Rue de Grenelle no. 127), Paris, by Mathurin Cherpitel, 1776 (2025). 9782707209153, Massin. ISBN 9782707209153
File:Église Saint-Louis (façade droite) - La Roche-sur-Yon.jpg|Neoclassical Tuscan columns of the Église Saint-Louis de La Roche-sur-Yon, La Roche-sur-Yon, France, by Simon Vallot, 1809–1859
File:Morbihan Auray Champs Martyrs - panoramio.jpg|Neoclassical Tuscan columns of the Chapelle expiatoire du Champ-des-Martyrs, Brech, France, by Auguste Caristie, 1824
File:Interior of the Neues Museum (13).jpg|Neoclassical Tuscan columns in the Neues Museum, Berlin, by Friedrich August Stüler, 1845–1850 (2025). 9783791342627, Prestel. ISBN 9783791342627
File:5 Strada Scaune, Bucharest (01).jpg|Beaux-Arts Tuscan pilasters of Strada Scaune no. 5, Bucharest, Romania, unknown architect, 1900
File:Eingang uni Bibliothek Heidelberg 2020-08-30 1.jpg|Art Nouveau reinterpretation of the Tuscan order at the entrance of the Heidelberg University Library, Heidelberg, Germany, by Josef Durm, 1901-1905
File:The war memorial in Abingdon - geograph.org.uk - 4262210.jpg|Neoclassical Tuscan columns of the Abingdon War Memorial, Abingdon-on-Thames, UK, by John George Timothy West, 1921
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