Following on from the last post on the Doric and Ionic order I explained that the Ionic Order was created to establish a feminine alternative to the masculine Doric Order.

Again in Vitruvius’ “Ten Books on Architecture”:

“They translated these footprints into terms characteristic of the slenderness of women, and thus first made a column the thickness of which was only one eighth of it’s height” (compared to the one sixth of the height for the Doric order).

The photo below shows a quick mark-up of one of the eight Ionic columns at the Temple of Saturn at the Forum in Rome which shows the above reasonably well: