Few men did more to make the neo-classic ideas authoritative than Giacomo Barrozzi, called Vignola. Beginning like so many others with painting, Vignola was led early to the study of architecture, in which he strove to gain an exact knowledge of classic Roman forms by drawing and measuring the remains of the ancient edifices. He thus became a devoted partisan of the antique, and he wrote a treatise on the Five Orders which has been widely accepted as an authoritative guide in modern architectural practice. To him, says Milizia, “Architecture is under lasting obligations because he established it upon system, and prescribed its rules.”[77] And the same author tells us further that Vignola “purified architecture from some abuses which neither his contemporaries nor the ancients had perceived”; yet nevertheless, he adds, “his book has produced more harm than good, for to make the rules more general, and more easy of application, he has altered the finest proportions of the antique.” No system of architecture, Milizia says further, “is more easy than that of Vignola, but the facility of it is obtained at the expense of architecture itself.” In his book,[78] which is made up largely of drawings and diagrams, Vignola shows how the proportions of an order may be regulated by a module down to the smallest details. He explains how to construct Ionic volutes and other curves from centres, and how to describe the details of Corinthian and composite capitals by means of plan and elevation. He thus introduces a mechanical system modelled after the formulas of Vitruvius. [Illustration: FIG. 43.--Vignola’s entablature.]