this column De l’Orme, in his book, gives several variants, showing how the salient drums, or rings, may be variously ornamented or left plain, or may be varied in their proportions; and he gives also a design for a doorway (Fig. 122)[133] in which he employs a Tuscan order treated in this way. It is hard to conclude what to think of De l’Orme’s claim to this column as his own invention, and of his statement that he had never seen one of its kind in any building, or in any book of architecture; for such a column was not a new thing, though it may not before have been used in France. Several examples of practically the same column occur in Serlio’s book, which was published in 1537 when De l’Orme was but twenty-two years of age,[134] one of which, in a design for a doorway, is here (Fig. 123) reproduced. [Illustration: FIG. 121.--De l’Orme’s column.] Of this doorway Serlio says: “Although Doric doorways may be designed in other ways, yet most men are pleased with novelty, and with that which is not too common, and they have satisfaction especially from that which, though being mixed, still retains its character, as in this doorway where, although the column, the frieze, and other members are broken, and covered with rustic work, nevertheless the form is seen well defined in all its proportions.”[135] He does not affirm that this novelty was his own invention, but he seems to imply that it was. However this may be, he was writing long before De l’Orme could have produced such a column as his design shows. The château of Villers Cotterets built for Henry II, in which De l’Orme remembered to have made columns somewhat like those of the Tuileries, could not have been begun before 1547, the year of Henry’s accession, and ten years after Serlio’s book was published. [Illustration: FIG. 122.--De l’Orme’s doorway.] [Illustration: FIG. 123.--Doorway, Serlio.] An ancient adumbration of this form of column occurs in the Porta Maggiore in Rome, where it has the appearance of an unfinished work, the drums being roughly shaped to be finished after they were set up, in the customary ancient manner. Such an example may well have suggested to the architects of the Renaissance the idea embodied in Serlio’s cut. Sansovino made use of this form of column in the façade of the Zecca in Venice, which was commissioned by the Council of Ten in 1535, and at Genoa, in the wall that was built to enlarge the circuit of the city, there is a portal bearing the date 1553, in which the scheme figured by Serlio is carried out. This peculiar column had therefore undoubtedly been in existence, both in a book of architecture and in actual monuments, before De l’Orme was writing. It is, of course, quite possible that he may have devised his scheme in ignorance of the Italian examples, but whether he did or not is for us a matter of little importance. It is, I think, an architectural monstrosity, and reflects little credit on its designer.