corvetto

English

Corvetto cornice on Tomb of Absalom in East Jerusalem

Noun

corvetto (plural corvettos)

1. A curvet; a leap.
   • 1622, Henry Peacham (Jr.), The Compleat Gentleman:

     You must draw the horse in his career with his manage, and turn, doing the corvetto, leaping &c..

   • 1843, Bernard M— (of S—), A Dream of a Queen's Reign, page 4:

     but scarce had I drawn back mine arms, strained the outward flexure of my knee-joints, and was fixed in an apt disposure to take the corvetto primo and leap-valiant of the cour, when methought suddenly there came in and did appear before me mine ancient, most reverend and singular good friend, the rector of Saynt Andrew of S—, nearest in neighbourhood, but not of mine own cure, myself being of D— manor house in the same vicinage,—who astonished beyond measure at my so extasied gladness, demanded wherefore I did carry myself on this wise?

2. An Egyptian style of cornice, resembling the roof structure of a reed hut.
   • 1996, Avnēr Rabbān, ‎ Kenneth G. Holum, Caesarea Maritima: A Retrospective After Two Millennia, page 141:

     These all have a crowning corvetto and ovolo.

   • 2010, Alan B. Lloyd, A Companion to Ancient Egypt, page 348:

     House D had Egyptian architectural features and artefacts, such as a stone slab with a corvetto cornice, a royal signet ring (Psamtik I), and mud sealings (Necho II) (Mumford 2007).

   • 2018, Jan Assmann, The Invention of Religion:

     An Egyptologist's mind immediately turns to the ancient Egyptian counterpart to such an imagined protosactuary: a reed hut that all late Egyptian temples, in their archaizing longing to return to the origins, sought to emulate in stone through the typically Egyptian temple features of inward-sloping walls, torus and corvetto cornice.

   • 2023, William McClure Thomson, The Land and the Book: Vol. II, page 481:

     The metope is occupied by a circular disk or shield, but in lieu of the regular cornice there is one which resembles the Egyptian cornice, consissting of a deep and high corvetto, and a bold torus below it