The theory of profiles from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century is subtly distinct from the theory of the architectural orders. Francesco di Giorgio initiated the topic with his analogy of cornice and facial profiles. Michelangelo further exploited the conceit, while also developing the formal, particularly skiagraphical, potential of mouldings. In the seventeenth century, Vincenzo Scamozzi set the archaeological findings of architects into a framework of rhetoric, which furnished terms…