assemblage of Orders

Arrangement of Orders on a Classical façade of several storeys, set one above the other and defining the storeys, with the vertical axes of the columns coinciding and lining up: this is called supercolumniation or an arrangement of superimposed Orders. The hierarchy places Tuscan at the lowest storey, then Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, and finally Composite. While the Antique precedent for such superimposition or assemblage was the Colosseum in Rome, its external wall having Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian Orders associated with an arcuated structure, the topmost Order was again Corinthian, but it was an Order of pilasters. Serlio was the first to codify the five Orders in his L'Architettura (1584), which had appeared in six parts from between 1537 and 1551, with illustrations augmenting the information in 1575, and so the five Orders set above each other (in the hierarchy described above) was essentially a Renaissance invention, and was widely disseminated.

Bibliography

• J. Curl (2001)

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