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TheSolomonic column, also calledbarley-sugar column, is ahelicalcolumn, characterized by a spiraling twisting shaft like acorkscrew. It is not associated with a specificclassical order, although most examples haveCorinthian orCompositecapitals. But it may be crowned with any design, for example, making aRoman Doric solomonic orIonic solomonic column.[1]
Perhaps originating in theNear East, it is a feature of LateRoman architecture, which was revived inBaroque architecture, especially in the Spanish and Portuguese-speaking worlds. Two sets of columns, both in the very prestigious setting ofSt. Peter's Basilica in Rome, were probably important in the wide diffusion of the style. The first were relatively small, and given byConstantine the Great in the 4th century. These were soon believed to have come from theTemple in Jerusalem, hence the style's naming after the biblicalSolomon. The second set are those ofBernini'sSt. Peter's Baldacchino, finished in 1633.
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Unlike the classical example ofTrajan's Column ofancient Rome, which has a turned shaft decorated with a single continuoushelical band of low-reliefs depicting Trajan's military might in battle, the twisted column is known to be an eastern motif taken intoByzantine architecture and decoration. Twist-fluted columns were a feature of some eastern architecture ofLate Antiquity.
In the 4th century,Constantine the Great brought a set of columns to Rome and gave them to theoriginal St. Peter's Basilica for reuse in the high altar andpresbytery;The Donation of Constantine, a painting fromRaphael's workshop, shows these columns in their original location. According to tradition, these columns came from the "Temple of Solomon", even though Solomon's temple was theFirst Temple, built in the 10th century BC and destroyed in 586 BC, not theSecond Temple, destroyed in 70 AD. These columns, now considered to have been made in the 2nd century AD,[2] became known as "Solomonic". In actuality, the columns probably came from neither temple. Constantine is recorded as having brought themde Grecias i.e., from Greece, and they are archaeologically documented as having been cut from Greek marble.[2] A small number of Roman examples of similar columns are known. All that can firmly be said is that they are early and, because they have no Christian iconography in the carving and their early date (before the construction of elaborate churches), are presumably reused from some non-church building.[2] The columns have distinct sections that alternate from ridged to smooth with sculpted grape leaves.
Some of these columns remained on the altar until the old structure of St. Peter's was torn down in the 16th century. While removed from the altar, eight of these columns remain part of the structure of St. Peter's. Two columns were placed below thependentives on each of the fourpiers beneath the dome. Another column can now be observed up close in the St. Peter's Treasury Museum. Other columns from this set of twelve have been lost over the course of time.
If these columns really were from one of theTemples in Jerusalem, the spiral pattern may have represented the oak tree which was the firstArk of the Covenant, mentioned in Joshua 24:26.[3] These columns have sections of twist-fluting alternating with wide bands of foliated reliefs.
From Byzantine examples, the Solomonic column passed to WesternRomanesque architecture. In Romanesque architecture some columns also featured spiraling elements twisted round each other like hawser. Such variety adding life to an arcade is combined withCosmatesque spiralling inlays in the cloister of St. John Lateran. These arcades were prominent in Rome and may have influenced the baroque Solomonic column.
The Solomonic column was revived as a feature ofBaroque architecture. The twistedS-curve shaft gives energy and dynamism to the traditional column form which fits these qualities that are characteristically Baroque.
Easily the best-known Solomonic columns are the colossal bronzeComposite columns byBernini in hisBaldacchino atSt. Peter's Basilica. The construction of thebaldachin, actually aciborium, which was finished in 1633, required that the original ones of Constantine be moved.
During the succeeding century, Solomonic columns were commonly used inaltars, furniture, and other parts of design. Sculpted vines were sometimes carved into the spirallingcavetto of the twisting columns, or made of metal, such as gilt bronze. In an ecclesiastical context such ornament may be read as symbolic of the wine used in theEucharist.
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In the 16th centuryRaphael depicted these columns in his tapestry cartoonThe Healing of the Lame at the Beautiful Gate, andAnthony Blunt noticed them inBagnocavallo'sCircumcision at the Louvre and in some Roman altars, such as one in Santo Spirito in Sassia, but their full-scale use in actual architecture was rare:Giulio Romano employed a version as half-columns decoratively[4] superimposed against a wall in the Cortile della Cavallerizza of thePalazzo Ducale, Mantua (1538-39).[5]
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Peter Paul Rubens employed Solomonic columns in tapestry designs, ca 1626[1], where he provided a variant of anIonic capital for the columns as Raphael had done, andrusticated and Solomonic columns appear in the architecture of his paintings with such consistency and in such variety that Anthony Blunt thought it would be pointless to give a complete list.[5]
The columns became popular inCatholicEurope including southernGermany. The Solomonic column spread toSpain at about the same time as Bernini was making his new columns, and from Spain toSpanish colonies in the Americas, where thesalomónica was often used in churches as an indispensable element of theChurrigueresque style. The design was most infrequently used inBritain, the south porch of St Mary the Virgin,Oxford, being the only exterior example found by Robert Durman,[3] and was still rare in English interior design, an example noted by Durman is the funerary monument for Helena, Lady Gorges (died 1635) atSalisbury perhaps the sole use.
After 1660, such twist-turned columns became a familiar feature in the legs of French, Dutch and English furniture, and on the glazed doors that protected the dials of late 17th- and early 18th-century bracket and longcase clocks. English collectors and dealers sometimes call these twist-turned members "barley sugar twists" after the type of sweet traditionally sold in this shape.
[They] seem to float unsupported
