On Architecture

Vitruvius Pollio

Vitruvius Pollio, creator; Morgan, M. H. (Morris Hicky), 1859-1910, translator

14. Each column should have twenty-four flutes, channelled out in such a way that if a carpenter's square be placed in the hollow of a flute and turned, the arm will touch the corners of the fillets on the right and left, and the tip of the square may keep touching some point in the concave surface as it moves through it. The breadth of the flutes is to be equivalent to the enlargement in the middle of a column, which will be found in the figure.