THE INVENTION OF THE CORINTHIAN CAPITAL.
Reading edition
About B. C. 550, there died at Corinth a marriageable virgin; and her nurse, according to the custom of the times, placed on her tomb a basket containing those viands most agreeable to her when alive, covering them with a tile, for better preservation. This basket was unintentionally placed over the root of an acanthus, the spring leaves and stems of which growing up, covered it in so elegant a manner as to attract the notice of Callimachus, who, struck with the idea and novelty of the figure, modelled from it the Corinthian capital, thus giving a remarkable proof of the intimate connection between Art, and Nature—the source of all true art—and producing that exquisitely graceful design which for twenty-four centuries has charmed the civilized world.