Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary/Cardo

Illustrated Companion to the Latin Dictionary, and Greek Lexicon (Rich, 1849)

CARDO. A pivot and socket, forming an apparatus by means of which the doors of the ancients were fixed in their places, and made to revolve in opening and shutting; thus answering the same purpose as the hinges more commonly in use amongst us, though the contrivance was entirely different in its character. (See GINGLYMUS.) The Greeks distinguished each of these parts by distinct names, using στρόφιγξ for the pivot, and στροφεύς for the socket in which the pivot worked; but the Latin writers commonly include the whole apparatus under the term cardo, though they sometimes apply it to each of the parts separately, and sometimes to the whole style of the door-leaf (scapus cardinalis), that formed the axle by which the contrivance acted. (Plin. H. N. xvi. 77. ib. 84. Id. xxxvi. 24. n. 8. Plaut. Asin. ii. 3. 38. Virg. Aen. ii. 480. Apul. Met. i. p. 9.) The figures in the annexed engraving (Cardo/1.1) will explain the nature of these objects, and the manner in which they were applied. The two top ones on the right hand exhibit a pair of bronze shoes from Egyptian originals in the British Museum, which were fastened on to the top and bottom of a door-leaf, to act as pivots (στρόφιγγες), for the wooden axles were cased with bronze to bear the wear and tear (Virg. Cir. 222. aeratus cardo); the two lower ones on the same side are two boxes which were let into the sill and lintel of the door case to act as sockets (στροφεῖς), in which the pivots turned; the left-hand one, which is Egyptian, and of very hard stone, is now in the British Museum, and was actually used with the pivot shoe drawn immediately above it: the right-hand one is of bronze, and was found in the sill of a door at Pompeii; the teeth or flutings round the sides are too keep it firm in its place, and prevent it from turning in its setting with the working of the door; the left-hand figure is an Egyptian door from Wilkinson, and shows the manner in which the apparatus was attached and worked. Compare the illustration s. ANTEPAGMENTUM.

2. The pin or pivot at each extremity of an axle in machinery, by means of which the axle revolves in the sockets which receive them, as in a wheel-barrow, roller, and similar contrivances. Vitruv. x. 14. 1.

3. A tenon in carpentry; i. e. the head of a timber cut into a particular form for the purpose of fitting into a cavity of the same size and shape in another piece, and so forming a joint (Vitruv. x. 14. 2.); hence cardo securiculatus, a tenon in the form of an axe, or as we call it "dove-tailed." Vitruv. x. 10. 3.

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  Cardo/1.1