Solomonic columns

The Solomonic column, also called Barley-sugar column, is a helical column, characterized by a spiraling twisting shaft like a corkscrew. It is not signified by a specific capital style and may be crowned with any design, for example, a Roman Doric solomonic, Corinthian solomonic or Ionic solomonic column.

Unlike the classical example of Trajan's Column of ancient Rome, which has a turned shaft decorated with a single continuous helical band of low-reliefs depicting Trajan’s military might in battle, the twisted column is known to be an eastern motif taken into Byzantine architecture and decoration. Twist-fluted columns were a feature of some eastern architecture of Late Antiquity.

In the 4th century, Constantine the Great brought a set of columns to Rome and gave them to the original St. Peter's Basilica for reuse in the high altar and presbytery; The Donation of Constantine, a painting from Raphael's workshop, shows these columns in their original location. According to tradition, these columns came from the "Temple of Solomon", even though Solomon's temple was the First Temple, built in the 10th century BCE and destroyed in 586 BCE, not the Second Temple, destroyed in 70 CE. These columns, now considered to have been made in the 2nd century CE, became known as "Solomonic". In actuality, the columns probably came from neither temple. Constantine is recorded as having brought them de Grecias i.e., from Greece, and they are archaeologically documented as having been cut from Greek marble. A small number of Roman examples of similar columns are known. All that can firmly be said is that they are early and, because they have no Christian iconography in the carving and their early date (before the construction of elaborate churches), are presumably reused from some non-church building. The columns have distinct sections that alternate from ridged to smooth with sculpted grape leaves.

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