Note 4 — Chapter XVI
Reading edition
The pycnostyle is the least intercolumniation allowed by Vitruvius, and is one diameter and a half of the column at the bottom of the shaft; but neither this proportion, nor that of the systyle, which is equal to two diameters of the column, are recommended by him for general adoption: since “the matrons (he adds) who go to their supplications, mutually supporting each other, cannot pass through the intercolumniations (those of the pycnostyle and systyle dimensions are intended) unless they separate and walk in ranks. The view of the entrance, and of the statues themselves, is also obstructed when the columns are placed so little apart; and the ambulatory, whose width is governed by the interval between the columns, is inconvenient from its being so narrow.”—Wilkins’s Vitruvius, vol. i. p. 11, 12.