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The ancient Greeks made their columns bulge out slightly about a third of the way up to correct for the optical illusion of concavity — a technique known as entasis.

This outward curvature of the profile is termed an entasis and in the Parthenon column, which is thirty-four feet in height, amounted to about three-fourths of an inch.

The entasis is almost invariably introduced in the spires of English churches.

The columns diminished at the top to about one-fifth of the lower diameter, and would seem to have had an entasis, as the lower portion up to one-third of the height is nearly vertical.

The columns, which are of Curzola marble, belong to the earlier building, though the entasis shows that classical feeling was beginning to affect even architects who worked in Gothic.