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| Fig. 6.—Corinthian Capital from the Tholos of Epidaurus. |
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| Fig. 7.—Roman Capital from the Temple of Mars Ultor, Rome. |
In the Ionic capital of the Archaic temple of Diana at Ephesus (560 b.c.) the width of the abacus is twice that of its depth, consequently the earliest Ionic capital known was virtually a bracket capital. A century later, in the temple on the Ilissus, published in Stuart and Revett, the abacus has become square. One of the most beautiful Corinthian capitals is that from the Tholos of Epidaurus (400 b.c.) (fig. 6); it illustrates the transition between the earlier Greek capital of Bassae and the Roman version of the temple of Mars Ultor (fig. 7).
The foliage of the Greek Corinthian capital was based on the Acanthus spinosus, that of the Roman on the Acanthus mollis; the capital of the temple of Vesta and other examples at Pompeii are carved with foliage of a different type.
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| Fig. 8.—Byzantine Capitals from the central portal of St Mark’s, Venice. |
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| Fig. 9.—Byzantine Capital from the Church of S. Vitale, Ravenna. | Fig. 10.—Byzantine Capital from the Church of S. Vitale, Ravenna. |
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| Fig. 11.—Cushion Capital. | Fig. 12.—Romanesque Capitals from the Cloister of Monreale,
near Palermo, Sicily. |
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| Fig. 13.—Gothic Capitals from Wells Cathedral. |
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| Fig. 14.—Gothic Capitals from Amiens Cathedral. |
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| Fig. 15.—Italian Renaissance Capital from S. Maria dei Miracoli, Venice. |
Byzantine capitals are of endless variety; the Roman composite capital would seem to have been the favourite type they followed at first: subsequently, the block of stone was left rough as it came from the quarry, and the sculptor, set to carve it, evolved new types of design to his own fancy, so that one rarely meets with many repetitions of the same design. One of the most remarkable is the capital in which the leaves are carved as if blown by the wind; the finest example being in Sta Sophia, Thessalonica; those in St Mark’s, Venice (fig. 8) specially attracted Ruskin’s fancy. Others are found in St Apollinare-in-classe, Ravenna. The Thistle and Pine capital is found in St Mark’s, Venice; St Luke’s, Delphi; the mosques of Kairawan and of Ibn Tūlūn, Cairo, in the two latter cases being taken from Byzantine churches. The illustration of the capital in S. Vitale, Ravenna (figs. 9 and 10) shows above it the dosseret required to carry the arch, the springing of which was much wider than the abacus of the capital.