Ionic order cap is usually enriched with egg-and-dart. Since Vitruvius, a female character has been ascribed to the Ionic (in contrast to the masculine Doric). The major features of the Ionic order are the volutes of its capital, which have been the subject of much theoretical and practical discourse, based on a brief and obscure passage in Vitruvius. The only tools required to design these features were a straight-edge, a right angle, string (to establish half-lengths) and a compass. Below the volutes, the Ionic column may have a wide collar or banding separating the capital from the fluted shaft (as in, for
Tuscan order Italic architectural form, predating the Greek Doric and Ionic, associated by Serlio with the practice of rustication and the architectural practice of Tuscany. Giorgio Vasari made a valid argument for this claim by reference to il Cronaca's graduated rustication on the facade of Palazzo Strozzi, Florence. Like all architectural theory of the Renaissance, precedents for a Tuscan order were sought for in Vitruvius, who does not include it among the three canonic orders, but peripherally, in his discussion of the Etruscan temple (book iv, 7.2–3). Later Roman practice ignored the Tuscan order, and so did Leon Battista Alberti in "De