- Pedestal
Pedestal (from French "piedestal", Italian "piedistallo", foot of a stall) is a term generally applied to the support of a
statue or avase .Although in
Syria ,Asia Minor andTunisia the Romans occasionally raised the columns of their temples or propylaea on square pedestals, inRome itself they were employed only to give greater importance to isolated columns, such as those of Trajan and Antoninus, or as apodium to the columns employed decoratively in the Roman triumphal arches.The architects of the Italian revival, however, conceived the idea that no order was complete without a pedestal, and as the orders were by them employed to divide up and decorate a building in several stories, the cornice of the pedestal was carried through and formed the sills of their windows, or, in open arcades, round a court, the
balustrade of the arcade. They also would seem to have considered that the height of the pedestal should correspond in its proportion with that of the column orpilaster it supported; thus in the church of Saint John Lateran, where the applied order is of considerable dimensions, the pedestal is convert|13|ft|m high instead of the ordinary height of 3 to convert|5|ft|m.Types of pedestals
An elevated pedestal or plinth which bears a statue and which is raised from the substructure supporting it (typically roofs or corniches) is sometimes called an acropodium. The term is from the Greek "akros" or topmost + "podos" or foot.
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