What is the Tuscan order?
The Tuscan order is the simplest and sturdiest-looking of the classical orders of architecture. It is Roman in origin and associated with the temple building of the Etruscans in central Italy, today’s Tuscany. The Roman architect Vitruvius already described the Tuscan temple. In the Renaissance, theorists such as Serlio and Vignola included the Tuscan as the first and plainest of the five orders, alongside the Doric, Ionic, Corinthian and Composite.
Features
- Shaft: smooth, without fluting (vertical grooves). This is the quickest way to tell it from the Doric column, which is usually fluted.
- Base: simple, usually a square plinth with a single torus (convex moulding) on top.
- Capital: plain, with a square abacus on a simple round echinus, without ornament.
- Entablature: a plain architrave and an undecorated frieze, so no triglyphs and metopes as in the Doric order.
- Proportions: stocky. In Vignola’s system the column is about seven times its lower diameter; the other orders are more slender.
Where it is used
Because the order looks robust and simple, it was often used where strength and restraint suit the building:
- Gateways, city gates and colonnades.
- Ground floors and lower storeys, with richer orders on the floors above.
- Outbuildings such as stables, coach houses and garden pavilions.
- Neoclassical porches and porticoes, including on houses.
Recognising it in practice
See a smooth column with a simple, ring-shaped capital and no ornament at all in the frieze? Then it is most likely Tuscan. Bear in mind that modern and simplified facades often use the orders freely, so not every plain column is strictly Tuscan.
Related terms
- Doric
- Ionic order
- Composite order
- Classical orders
- Torus moulding
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