In ancient culture, the column was not simply seen as a architectonical element but it symbolised the human being rising from the animal state to the divine one and therefore. This elevation, from an earthly to a divine state, from the animal instinct to the spiritual elevation, was the spark that inspired the art world in Italy in the centuries to come and would eventually peak in the humanism of the Renaissance.
The Roman Empire was the promulgator in the western world of the Hellenic culture and its three main orders - Doric, Ionic and Corinthian – became pivotal elements of Roman architecture, so much so that their essential structures and characteristic have remained examples to follow for architects until the end of the 19th century.
Originated in Greece, in the Peloponnese, the Doric order expanded extensively also in Italy after the colonization period, predominantly in the regions that belonged at that time to the Magna Graecia: Sicily, Campania, Calabria, Apulia and Basilicata.
In the 1st century, Vitruvio Pollione, an architecture essayist, whose treatise is the oldest work on the subject in our possession today, accurately described each order and attributed a different aesthetic characteristic to them. The powerful male strength was assigned to the Doric order, the elegant slender female figure to the Ionic and the delicate grace of a youthful body to the Corinthian.