The Corinthian Capital (or, “quod significat” and “quod significatur”)

?A Corinthian virgin, of marriageable age, fell a victim to a violent disorder. After her interment, her nurse, collecting in a basket those articles to which she had shown a partiality when alive, carried them to her tomb, and placed a tile on the basket for the longer preservation of its contents. The basket was accidentally placed on the root of an acanthus plant. Pressed by the weight, towards spring it shot forth its stems and large foliage, and in the course of its growth reached the angles of the tile, and thus formed volutes at the extremities.

Callimachus, who for is great ingenuity and taste was called by the Athenians “Catatechnos” [“perfect artist”], happening at this time to pass by the tomb, observed the basket, and the delicacy of the foliage which surrounded it. Pleased with the form and novelty of the combination, he constructed from the hint thus afforded, columns of this species in the country about Corinth, and arranged its proportions, determining their proper measures by perfect rules? (Vitruvius, “De architectura”, IV 1; trans. by Joseph Gwilt).

The above anecdote was told by the Latin Vitruvius, not only a great architect but also the best theorist of fine arts in antiquity. This apparent legend about the birth of the Corinthian order in Greek architecture is an apologue too, on the immortalizing function of art. The “perfect artist”, Callimachus, couldn't know the features of the young subject, to possibly commemorate in a portrait or in a statue. He decided to defy death and oblivion anyway, by collaborating with the reviving power of nature and with the human pity of the nurse.

His monument was no longer a mere imitation. Nor was it a representation. Rather, a re-presentation, or a true sublimation: something, which later will be defined humanity. Moreover, as a model, it could be replicated thousand and thousand times. Not by chance, Vitruvius adds that the Corinthian one is the most feminine and virginal of styles. In one sense at least, it's an universal projection of the poor Corinthian girl. It's when “quod significat” (the signifier) transcends “quod significatur” (the signified). It's also true, Callimachus wasn't the first multiform artist. He went even beyond. He was what will be, far later, called a genius.

?Cum in omnibus enim rebus, tum maxime etiam in architectura haec duo insunt: quod significatur et quod significat? (“Such as in everything, with all the more reason in architecture two are the aspects which matter: what is signified and what signifies”; “De architectura”, I 1, 2-3): this is the specific passage, where Vitruvius resumes his theory on signification, long before modern analogous ones. It's also true, in his turn, he develops concepts which had been elaborated by Stoic philosophers (in Greek, “semainon” was the signifier; “semainomenon”, the signified). Nonetheless, they had applied them to language. Reliably, Vitruvius was the first, who extended their significance to visual arts.

Which is the relation, between the signified and the signifier? It isn't a necessary one, like between cause and effect. Nor is the signifier immanent to the signified, like an effect to its cause. Nay, an architectural project precedes the realization of what it signifies. Aware of a risk of indetermination, Vitruvius warns from those who seem to deal with a shadow rather than with something real: ?umbram non rem persecuti videntur?. And he adds: ?Significatur proposita res, de qua dicitur; hanc autem significat demonstratio rationibus doctrinarum explicata? (“The signified is a purposed object, which it's told about; thus, its signifier has to be a demonstration, explained by all the means of a rational and various learning”).