FORMA
FORMA
dim.
FORMULA, FORMELLA (
τύπος), a pattern, a mould; any contrivance adapted to convey
its own shape to some plastic or flexible material, including moulds for
making pottery, pastry, cheese, bricks, and coins. Several moulds for use in
cookery are among the kitchen utensils found at Pompeii. The moulds for
coins were made of a kind of stone, which was indestructible by heat (
Plin. Nat. 36.168). The mode of pouring
into them the melted metal for casting the coins will be best understood
from the woodcut on next page, which represents one side of a mould,
engraved by Seroux d'Agincourt. For the moulds used in casting terra-cottas,
see
ECTYPUS Moulds were
likewise employed in making walls of the kind now called
pisé, i.e. clay cast in wooden frames, which were built
in Africa, in Spain, and about Tarentum (Varr.
de R. R. 1.14;
Pallad. 1.34;
parietes formacei,
Plin. Nat. 35.169). The shoemaker's last
was also called
forma (Hor.
Sat. 2.3, 106),
formula (
Amm. Marc. 31.2.6), and
tentipellium
[p. 1.873](Festus, s. v.), in Greek
καλόπους (Plat.
Symp. 191 A). The spouts and
channels of
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Forma, mould for coins.
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aqueducts are called
formae, perhaps
from their resemblance to some of the moulds included in the above
enumeration (Frontin.
de Aquaeduct. 75, 126).
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J.Y] [
W.W]
