baluster

Illustration of a stairway featuring balusters in the Georgian style from the first edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 1, plate XXXIV, figure 1.

baluster, one of a series of small posts supporting the coping or handrail of a parapet or railing. Colonnettes are shown as balusters in Assyrian palaces by contemporary bas-reliefs and are similarly used in many railings of the Gothic period. Although no Greek or Roman example of the baluster is known, the Italian Renaissance designers made great use of it, employing, instead of the medieval colonnette, forms richly molded and usually round. The Renaissance balusters generally had a capital, a base, and a vase-shaped form between. In early Renaissance work a form similar to two vases set base to base is frequent. The later Renaissance architects codified balusters into orders like columns, and those of the Baroque went to the other extreme of fantasy in baluster form. The term "baluster shaft" is used of any similar vertical shaft such as those found dividing the windows in Saxon work.