The Ten Books on Architecture, 4.4.3

Vitruvius  translated by Joseph Gwilt

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3This arises from the eye embracing a greater number of surfaces, and thence producing on the mind the effect of a larger body. For if two columns, equally thick, one of them without flutes, and the other fluted, are measured round with lines, and the line is passed over the flutes and their fillets, though the columns are of equal thickness, the lines which girt them will not be equal, for that which passes over the fillets and flutes will of course be the longest. This being the case, it is not improper in confined and enclosed situations to make the columns of slenderer proportions, when we have the regulation of the flutes to assist us.

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