Ionic capital

Ionic capital of canonical type, that has a square abacus (side 30 cm; diagonal 38 cm), the volutes and the side bolsters, but is devoid of the astragal, thus the base circumference (diam. 27 cm), worked with a toothed chisel, was resting directly onto the summit of the shaft.

The channel of the volutes (w. 3.5 cm) has a concave profile and its bordering fillet follows the spiral’s design and ends in a flat plain eye (volutes diam. 10 cm); at the inner end of the volutes remain the traces of the oblique half-plamette that laps the first egg without covering it. The echinus is heavily carved with the Ionic ovolo (h. 6 cm), whose three full eggs are deeply undercut with a good sense of plasticism and are characterised by a pointed end; the eggs are contained in thin cases, not yet as thick as they will become in Flavian times, and are alternated by thin tongues, which, on the Ionic capitals, will subsequently be substituted by darts. Considering these characteristic features, the capital can be dated to the first half of the I century AD.

Our example, carved in the precious Pentelic marble, shows some stylistic characteristics that recall the Hellenistic tradition: the capital cut separately from the astragal of the column in accordance to the Attic and Asian tradition; the ideal line connecting the eyes of the volutes that corresponds to the lower margin of the echinus; the straight, not sagged channel of the volutes; the simple design that evokes the works of Attic workshops.

Especially the plastic handling of the ovolo molding, with its full pointed eggs and with its thin tongues, may reveal the presence of stonemasons of Greek origin working in Augustan age.