Ionic order that the Doric column had its initial basis in the proportions of the male body, while Ionic columns took on a "slenderness" inspired by the female body. Though he does not name his source for such a self-conscious and "literary" approach, it must be in traditions passed on from Hellenistic architects, such as Hermogenes of Priene, the architect of a famed temple of Artemis at Magnesia on the Meander in Lydia (now Turkey). Renaissance architectural theorists took his hints, to interpret the Ionic order as matronly in comparison to the Doric order, though not as wholly feminine as the Corinthian
Classical order fertile development of a new architecture based on classical principles. The treatise "De architectura" by Roman theoretician, architect and engineer Vitruvius, is the only architectural writing that survived from Antiquity. Rediscovered in the 15th century, Vitruvius was instantly hailed as the authority on architecture. However, in his text the word "order" is not to be found. To describe the four species of columns (he only mentions: Tuscan, Doric, Ionic and Corinthian) he uses, in fact, various words such as: "genus" (gender), "mos" (habit, fashion, manner), "opera" (work). The term "order", as well as the idea of redefining the "canon" started