faces of the volutes must recede
from the edge of the abacus inwards by one and a half eighteenths of
that same amount. Then, the height of the capital is to be divided into
nine and a half parts, and down along the abacus on the four sides of
the volutes, down along the fillet at the edge of the abacus, lines
called "catheti" are to be let fall. Then, of the nine and a half parts
let one and a half be reserved for the height of the abacus, and let the
other eight be used for the volutes.

6. Then let another line be drawn, beginning at a point situated at a
distance of one and a half parts toward the inside from the line
previously let fall down along the edge of the abacus. Next, let these
lines be divided in such a way as to leave four and a half parts under
the abacus; then, at the point which forms the division between the four
and a half parts and the remaining three and a half, fix the centre of
the eye, and from that centre describe a circle with a diameter equal to
one of the eight parts. This will be the size of the eye, and in it draw
a diameter on the line of the "cathetus." Then, in describing the
quadrants, let the size of each be successively less, by half the
diameter of the eye, than that which begins under the abacus, and
proceed from the eye until that same quadrant under the abacus is
reached.

7. The height of the capital is to be such that, of the nine and a half
parts, three parts are below the level of the astragal at the top of the
shaft, and the rest, omitting the abacus and the channel, belongs to
its echinus. The projection of the echinus beyond the fillet of the
abacus should be equal to the size of the eye. The projection of the
bands of the cushions should be thus obtained: place one leg of a pair
of compasses in the centre of the capital and open out the other to the
edge of the echinus; bring this leg round and it will touch the outer
edge of the bands. The axes of the volutes should not be thicker than
the size of the eye, and the volutes themselves should be channelled out
to a depth which is one twelfth of their height. These will be the
symmetrical proportions for capitals of columns twenty-five feet high
and less. For higher columns the other proportions will be the same, but
the length and breadth of the abacus will be the thickness of the lower
diameter of a column plus one ninth part thereof; thus, just as the
higher the column the less the diminution, so the projection of its