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Choragic Monument of Lysicrates

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The Choragic Monument of Lysicrates near the Acropolis of Athens was erected by the choregos Lysicrates, a wealthy patron of musical performances in the Theater of Dionysus , to commemorate the prize in the dithyramb contest of the City Dionysia in 335/334 BCE, of which performance he was liturgist .

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53-503: The monument is known as the first use of the Corinthian order on the exterior of a building. It has been reproduced widely in modern monuments and building elements. The circular structure, raised on a high squared podium, is the first Greek monument built in the Corinthian order on its exterior. It was originally crowned with an elaborate floral support for the bronze tripod, the prize awarded to Lysicrates' chorus. The sculpture on

106-540: A Doric one, which is designed to represent the bulk and vigour of a muscular full grown man. The oldest known example of a Corinthian column is in the Temple of Apollo Epicurius at Bassae in Arcadia, c. 450–420 BC. It is not part of the order of the temple itself, which has a Doric colonnade surrounding the temple and an Ionic order within the cella enclosure. A single Corinthian column stands free, centered within

159-585: A slab on top, on the grave of a Corinthian girl. 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

212-839: A tower crowned by a replica of the Choragic Monument. There is also a replica on top of the First Congregational Church in Burlington, Vermont. It was constructed in 1842 and designed by architect Henry Searle. With open bays between the columns, it serves as a bell tower for the church. [REDACTED] Media related to Choragic Monument of Lysicrates at Wikimedia Commons 37°58′15″N 23°43′48″E  /  37.97083°N 23.73000°E  / 37.97083; 23.73000 Corinthian order The Corinthian order ( Greek : Κορινθιακὸς ῥυθμός , Korinthiakós rythmós ; Latin : Ordo Corinthius )

265-528: 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 festoons suspended between bucrania . Above each festoon has a rosette over its center. The cornice does not have modillions . Indo-Corinthian capitals are capitals crowning columns or pilasters , which can be found in the northwestern Indian subcontinent , and usually combine Hellenistic and Indian elements. These capitals are typically dated to

318-525: Is derived from the ancient Greek city of Corinth , although it was probably invented in Athens . The Corinthian order is named for the Greek city-state of Corinth , to which it was connected in the period. However, according to the architectural historian Vitruvius , the column was created by the sculptor Callimachus , probably an Athenian, who drew acanthus leaves growing around a votive basket of toys, with

371-650: Is preserved to this day, is the Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church, located at 222-230 Brown Street Philadelphia (Northern Liberties Area), formerly known as St. John's Episcopalian Church . An anonymous report from its consecration, published on September 21, 1816, in Relf’s Philadelphia Gazette and Daily Advertiser , describes the church as a “neat and elegant edifice” whose “design was given by Mr. William Strickland, of this city,” and whose “execution has done justice to

424-637: Is the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument designed by architects Charles and Arthur Stoughton and erected on Riverside Drive in New York City in 1902. A bronze miniature of the Choragic Monument is handed out for the Richard H. Driehaus Prize recognizing a living architect whose work exemplifies the values of traditional and classical architecture in a contemporary built environment. The University of Notre Dame 's Walsh Family Hall of Architecture features

477-685: Is the last developed and most ornate of the three principal classical orders 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. A Corinthian capital may be seen as an enriched development of

530-570: Is usually found in smaller columns, both ancient and modern. The style developed its own model in Roman practice, following precedents set by the Temple of Mars Ultor in the Forum of Augustus ( c.  2 AD ). It was employed in southern Gaul at the Maison Carrée , Nîmes and at the comparable Temple of Augustus and Livia at Vienne . Other prime examples noted by Mark Wilson Jones are

583-471: The Composite order during the 16th century. The mid-16th-century Italians, especially Sebastiano Serlio and Jacopo Barozzi da Vignola , who established a canonic 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

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636-641: The Second Bank of the United States in Philadelphia (1819–1824), a competition that called for "chaste" Greek style. Strickland, who was still copying classical prototypes at this point, won with an ambitious design modeled on the iconic Parthenon of Athens . Proud of the building, Strickland had it included in the background of his 1829 portrait by Philadelphia society painter John Neagle . The oldest building designed by W. Strickland, which

689-566: 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. 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. The form

742-705: The monument , which by the early 19th century was being used as the monastery library. The monument was popularly known as the "Lantern of Demosthenes " or "Lantern of Diogenes", although a reading of its inscription by Jacob Spon had established its original purpose. The young British architects James "Athenian" Stuart and Nicholas Revett published the first measured drawings of the monument in their Antiquities of Athens (London 1762). The monument became famous in France and England through engravings of it, and contemporary versions of it became eye-catching features in several English landscape gardens . Lord Byron stayed at

795-604: The 17th century by French treatises with further refined engraved models, such as Perrault's. William Strickland (architect) William Strickland (November 1788 – April 6, 1854) was a noted architect and civil engineer in Philadelphia , Pennsylvania , and Nashville, Tennessee . A student of Benjamin Latrobe and mentor to Thomas Ustick Walter , Strickland helped establish the Greek Revival movement in

848-476: The 1st centuries of our era, and constitute important elements of Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhara . 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 Buddha or Bodhisattvas , usually as central figures surrounded, and often in

901-932: The Choragic Monument include the Dugald Stewart Monument and Burns' Monument both on Calton Hill in Edinburgh , on the towers of the former North Kirk in Aberdeen and St Giles Church in Elgin, the Huskisson Memorial in St James Cemetery Liverpool, the Saracen Fountain in Glasgow and in the gardens at Shugborough, Staffordshire , Tatton Park and Alton Towers among many others. The Grade I-listed St John

954-493: 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 colonettes within

1007-471: 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

1060-706: The Evangelist's Church, Chichester , now redundant , is topped with a "preposterous miniature" of the monument. In Australia, there is a version in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney in New South Wales. It is also reproduced at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne where it forms a crowning element at the top of the memorial's pyramid-like roof. In the United States, the Choragic Monument

1113-654: The First Presbyterian Church (now the Downtown Presbyterian Church ) was controversial but today is widely recognized as a masterpiece and an important evocation of the Egyptian Revival style. Strickland was also a civil engineer and one of the first to advocate the use of steam locomotives on railways. Some argue that Strickland's observations made during visits to England in the 1820s were highly influential in

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1166-523: The Ionic capital, though one may have to look closely at a Corinthian capital to see the Ionic volutes ("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

1219-532: 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

1272-612: The United States. A pioneering engineer, he wrote a seminal book on railroad construction, helped build several early American railroads , and designed the first ocean breakwater in the Western Hemisphere. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1820. Strickland was born in the Navesink, New Jersey to John and Elizabeth Strickland. While William was still a child,

1325-478: 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

1378-511: The building is now occupied by National Mechanics Bar and Restaurant . Strickland also executed works in other styles, including very early American work in the Gothic Revival style, including his Masonic Hall (1808–11, burned 1819) and his Saint Stephen's Church (1823), both in Philadelphia. He also made use of Egyptian, Saracenic and Italianate styles. He later moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where his Egyptian -influenced design of

1431-623: 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

1484-542: The cella. This is a mysterious feature, and archaeologists debate what this shows: some state that it is simply an example of a votive column . A few examples of Corinthian columns in Greece during the next century are all used inside temples. A more famous example, and the first documented use of the Corinthian order on the exterior of a structure, is the circular Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens, erected c. 334 BC. A Corinthian capital carefully buried in antiquity in

1537-428: The central shaft is plainly visible. Much later, the Roman writer Vitruvius ( c.  75 BC  – c.  15 BC ) 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

1590-460: 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

1643-529: The family moved to Philadelphia (c. 1790), where his father -- a master carpenter -- became, in 1811, a charter member of the Practical House Carpenters' Society In his youth, Strickland was a landscape painter, illustrator for periodicals, theatrical scene painter, engraver, and pioneer aquatintist . His Greek Revival designs drew much inspiration from the plates of The Antiquities of Athens . Strickland and Latrobe competed to design

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1696-546: 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 follow 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

1749-549: The frieze is thought to depict the myth of Dionysus and the Tyrrhenian pirates from the Homeric Hymn to Dionysus. Immediately below the architrave and between the column capitals is a second frieze depicting the choragic tripods. The monument is inscribed "Lysikrates son of Lysitheides of Kikynna was sponsor, Akamantis was victorious in the boys’ competition, Theon was pipe-player, Lysiades of Athens directed, Euainetos

1802-465: 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

1855-427: The human form, in squared drawings he made of the Corinthian capital overlaid with human heads, to show the proportions common to both. 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

1908-404: The intersection of two major thoroughfares between the waterfront and the business district . The elegant, curved east façade faces the waterfront, and reflects the carriage and foot traffic that would have been circulating in front of the building. This elevation is unique — Greek Revival, but modern — while a more staid and formal elevation can be found on the west side, facing Third Street. In

1961-635: The lower order of the Basilica Ulpia and the Arch of Trajan at Ancona (both of the reign of Trajan , 98–117 AD), the Column of Phocas (re-erected in Late Antiquity but 2nd century in origin), and the Temple of Bacchus at Baalbek ( c.  150 AD ). Proportion is a defining characteristic of the Corinthian order: the "coherent integration of dimensions and ratios in accordance with

2014-591: The monastery during his second visit to Greece. In 1818, friar Francis planted in its gardens the first tomato plants in Greece. In 1821 the convent was burned by the Ottomans during the Greek War of Independence , and subsequently demolished, and the monument was inadvertently exposed to the weather. In 1829, the monks offered the structure to an Englishman on tour, but it proved to be too cumbersome to disassemble and ship. Lord Elgin negotiated unsuccessfully for

2067-540: The monument, by then an icon in the Greek Revival . French archaeologists cleared the rubble from the half-buried monument and searched the area for missing architectural parts. In 1876–1887, the architects François Boulanger and E. Loviot supervised a restoration under the auspices of the French government. In June 2016, anarchists vandalised the monument with spray paint, writing: "Your Greek monuments are concentration camps for immigrants". Famous British versions of

2120-407: The one is no more than an old copy of the other. 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

2173-460: 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

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2226-478: 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 feet while the column height itself is a multiple of 5. In its proportions, the Corinthian column is similar to the Ionic column , though it is more slender, and stands apart by its distinctive carved capital. The abacus upon

2279-453: 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

2332-571: The same year he designed the Merchants' Exchange, 1832, Strickland entered a project in the competition for Philadelphia's Girard College, which won the second prize. Strickland's 1836 National Mechanic Bank at 22 South 3rd Street, set on a narrow plot between two taller neighbors, has strong, square pilasters to support the portico and ornate stone carving at their tops to defend the building against its taller and bulkier neighbors. One of Strickland's last Philadelphia designs and among his smallest,

2385-556: The shade, of the luxurious foliage of Corinthian designs. Though the term "Corinthian" is reserved for columns and capitals that adhere fairly closely to one of the classical versions, vegetal decoration to capitals continued to be extremely common in Byzantine architecture and the various styles of the European Middle Ages , from Carolingian architecture to Romanesque architecture and Gothic architecture . There

2438-595: The taste of the Architect.” (Jeffrey. A. Cohen, 1983). Strickland's evolving talent and confidence is seen in the later Merchants' Exchange (1832–34). Also in Philadelphia, the Merchant Exchange is built on classical example — for example, the cupola is based on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates — but is a unique building styled to fit the site. It was to be located on a triangular plot at

2491-668: 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 canon : 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 columns and elaborate capitals decorated with acanthus leaves and scrolls. There are many variations. The name Corinthian

2544-539: The transfer of railway technology to the United States: "William Strickland's Reports are the starting point of American railway engineering, and represent the state of knowledge as the first railways were planned in that country." In 1835, the Wilmington and Susquehanna Railroad hired him to survey a route from Wilmington, Delaware , to Charlestown, Maryland . Later that year, he was named chief engineer of

2597-551: The weather. An acanthus plant had grown through the woven basket, mixing its spiny, deeply cut leaves with the weave of the basket. 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

2650-794: Was William Strickland 's model for the cupola of the Merchants' Exchange in Philadelphia and copied by him for the cupola atop the Tennessee State Capitol building in Nashville . The design of the Portland Breakwater Light in Maine was inspired by the monument. It was adapted for Civil War memorials and capped many Beaux-Arts towers , such as The San Remo 's towers in New York. The most prominent example

2703-597: Was archon". It stands now in its little garden on the Tripodon Street ("Street of the Tripods"), which follows the line of the ancient street of the name, which led to the Theater of Dionysus and was once lined with choragic monuments, of which foundations were discovered in excavations during the 1980s. In 1658, a French Capuchin monastery was founded by the site; in 1669 the monastery succeeded in purchasing

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2756-639: Was considerable freedom in the details and the relationship between column (generally not fluted) and capital. Many types of plant were represented, sometimes realistically, as in the capitals in the chapter house at Southwell Minster in England. During the first flush of the Italian Renaissance , the Florentine architectural theorist Francesco di Giorgio expressed the human analogies that writers who followed Vitruvius often associated with

2809-407: 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, 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

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