OTI:notes::7/27/22

Open To Interpretation

Greek Meander

quote

The French scholar, Roland Fréart, sieur de Chambray, undoubtedly became acquainted with the complex Greek meander during his 1630s sojourn in Rome, during which he studied architecture. Direct familiarity, however, was achieved when he translated Palladio’s Quattro Libri into French, published in 1650. That same year, Fréart published his famous Parallèle de l’Architecture antique et de la moderne in which he illustrated the page of frets shown here. The fret from the Temple of Mars Ultor soffit is seen in the center left. John Evelyn published an English translation of the Parallèle in 1664 from which Fréart’s commentary on the frets is here quoted: I have made a very curious and rare Collection of a certain Ornament which they call Fret, and of which the Antients [sic] made great use. . . . The Ornament consists in a certain interlacing of two Lists or small Fillets, which run always in parallel distances equal to their breadth, with this necessary condition, that at every return and intersection they do always fall into right angles; this is so indispensable that they have no grace without it.[vi]

https://www.classicist.org/articles/classical-comments-the-complex-greek-meander/#:~:text=The%20unbroken%2C%20interlocking%20pattern%20made,one%20another%20at%20continuous%20intervals.

unquote

Notes: "I have made a very curious...collection"...A possible intro to my Step Fret effort!...I leave out "rare", as I imagine such are as common as seashell collections, but damned difficult to drill down into the web to find them!...Angels won one last night, they can win one, now and then, of late...maybe tonight two...bbk...

:)

DavidDavid