MODULE, (from the Latin, modulus, a pattern,) in archi tecture, a certain measure taken at pleasure, for regulating the proportions of columns, and the symmetry or distribution of the whole building.
Architects usually choose the diameter, or semi-diameter, of tire bottom of the column, for their module; and this they subdivide into parts or minutes, Vignola divides his module, which is a semi-diameter, into twelve parts, for the Tuscan and _Doric; and into eighteen, for the other orders.
The module of Palladio, Scammozzi, \[. Cambray, Des godetz, Le Clere, &c., which is also the semi-diameter, is divided into 30 parts or minutes, in all the orders.
Some divide the NVIIOIC height of the column into ;20 parts for the _Doric, fur the Ionic, '25 for the Roman, &c., and one of these parts they make a module, by which to regulate the rest of the building.
There are two way s of determining the measures, or pro poi bons of buildings: the first by a fixed standard! measure, which is usually the diameter of the lower part of the column, called a module, subdivided into 60 parts, called minutes. In the second there are no minutes, nor any certain and stated division of the module ; but it is divided occasionally into as many parts as are judged necessary. Thus tire height of the Attic base, which is half the [nodule, is divided either into three, to have the height of the plinth ; or into tour, fur that of the greater torus; or into six, for that of the lesser.
Both these manners have been practised by the ancient as well as the modern architects; but the second, which was that chiefly used among the ancients, is, in the opinion of Perrault, preferable.
As Vitruvius, in the Doric order, has lessened his module, which, in the other orders, is the diameter of the lower part of the column, and has reduced that great module to a mean one, which is a semi-diameter ; Al. Perrault reditees the rho. dule to a third part, fer t he same reason, viz., to determine the several measures without a fraction. Fur in the 1 hirie order, beside that the height ef the base, as in the other orders, is determined by one of these mean modules ; the same module gives likewise the heights of the capital, archi trave, triglyphs, and metopes. But our little module, taken from the third of' the diameter of the lower part of the column, has uses much more extensive ; Gd', by this, the heights of pedestals of columns, arid entablatures, in all orders, are determined without a fraction.
As then the great module, or diameter of the column, has GO minutes ; and the mean module, or half the diameter 30 minutes ; our little module has :20. See COLUMN.