Doric order The Roman architect Vitruvius, following contemporary practice, outlined in his treatise the procedure for laying out constructions based on a module, which he took to be one half a column's diameter, taken at the base. An illustration of Andrea Palladio's Doric order, as it was laid out, with modules identified, by Isaac Ware, in "The Four Books of Palladio's Architecture" (London, 1738) is illustrated at Vitruvian module. According to Vitruvius the height of Doric columns is six or seven times the diameter at the base. This gives the Doric columns a shorter, thicker look than Ionic columns, which have 8:1
Roland Fréart de Chambray moderne", which marked the first complete translation of Vitruvius into French and upheld the superiority of the Ancients over the Moderns, a polemic that was to erupt in the following decades into a virtual culture war. In his preface, Fréart de Chambray argues that the Classical orders (the Doric, the Ionic, and Corinthian) which he assigns to Greek precedents, are perfect models for all architecture; he condemns the "Roman orders" (the Tuscan and the Composite) as corrupt. Citing the use of the Corinthian order in the Temple of Solomon, he declares it to be the ‘flower of Architecture and the