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An ovolo in the classical tradition is a convex quarter circle moulding. Compare the comment in Seven Lamps of Architecture that ‘all the beauty [Doric] had was dependent on the precision of its ovolo’ (Works, 8.140), and the footnote there pointing out that Ruskin in the manuscript had used the phrase ‘single curved line’ instead of the word ‘ovolo’. At Works, 31.26 [n/a] Ruskin suggests that the ‘ovolo’ is a specifically Doric form, though Palladio, First Book, Chapters XV and XVI includes it as a moulding in both Ionic and Doric capitals.
Ruskin is concerned with the influence of the classical tradition in early Lombard work in Northern Italy; hence perhaps his use of the technical term. However it is far from clear how his use of the term here relates to its use within the classical tradition.
See Notebook N p.26 for drawings exploring the relationship between Greek and Gothic architecture, and the note on the Baldacchino in S.Ambrogio at Notebook M p.14.
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[Version 0.05: May 2008]