that maxim which usually goes by the title of occams razor. this variation found in the fourth chapter of a book on architecture attributed to a roman military engineer, marcus vitruvius. he reworks the maxim to explain why though there are many designs of capitals the number of names for them are kept to three, to avoid multiplying categories.
" there are, however, other kinds of capitals built on top of the same columns ( doric, ionic and corinthean) and described with various terms, but we cannot identify their particular modular systems or their columns as though they were another order, instead we can see that their technical vocabulary is taken over, and adapted from the corinthean, the pulvinate ( ionic) and the doric, of which the modular systems have been transferred to match the delicate forms of the new architectural sculpture. "
vitruvius, on architecture-book 4; made in to english by richard schofield.
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