Gutta

The Gutta (Latin drops, usually plural guttae, German sometimes called calves tooth) is in the Greek Doric temple, a drop -like hanging element at the bottom of certain architectural elements that had either widened conically downward or cylindrical in shape.

From the second half of the 6th century BC, the guttae are regularly arranged in three rows of six drops on the undersides of the Mutulusplatten the Doric Geisons. The six guttae in a row adorn the bottoms of the Regulae, small bars that were being worked under the crowning of Taenia Doric architrave. In the early phase of the Doric stone architecture, the number of their guttae could be only four in the Mutuli there were solutions with alternating wide and narrow plates, the latter then the number of guttae was reduced to 3 x 3. Also, there were initially two-row forms with for example 2 x 5 guttae.

The guttae be interpreted parts of the research as an anachronistic replica of the nails in the original timber form of the Doric temple.

The design of the triangular guttae is resumed in the Italian Mannerism. So the example of the Palazzo degli Elefanti where triangular guttae are seen in the continuous pilasters instead of capitals.

Swell

Vitruvius de Architectura 4.1.2 and 4.3.6