Ideo, quod antiqui fabri quodam in loco aedificantes, cum ita ab interioribus parietibus ad extremas partes tigna prominentia habuissent conlocata, inter tigna struxerunt supraque coronas et fastigia venustiore specie fabrilibus operibus ornaverunt, tum proiecturas tignorum, quantum eminebant, ad lineam et perpendiculum parietum praesecuerunt, quae species cum invenusta is visa esset, tabellas ita formatas, uti nunc fiunt triglyphi, contra tignorum praecisiones in fronte fixerunt et eas cera caerulea depinxerunt, ut praecisiones tignorum tectae non offenderent visum ita divisiones tignorum tectae triglyphorum dispositionem et inter tigna metoparum habere in doricis operibus coeperunt.
Thus workmen of old, building in various places, when they had put beams reaching from the inner walls to the outside parts, built in the spaces between the beams; above through their craftsmanship, they ornamented the cornices and gables with a more graceful effect. Then they cut off the projections of the beams, as far as they came forward, to the line and perpendicular of the walls. But since this appearance was ungraceful, they fixed tablets shaped as triglyphs now are, against the cutoff beams, and painted them with blue wax, in order that the cutoff beams might be concealed so as not to offend the eyes. Thus in Doric structures, the divisions of the beams being hidden began to have the arrangement of the triglyphs, and, between the beams, of metopes.
final_alignments\Vitruvius_Architecture_Book_4.json