To an approximate scale of 1:7

[measurements]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

Pen and brown ink and grey-brown and brown wash over stylus lines

Bernardo della Volpaia

No other record of this unidentified and seemingly fragmentary Doric entablature has been found. The drawing is very much the secondary one on the sheet and was presumably added because the entablature – despite being much smaller in size than its neighbour – likewise lacked a cornice and had an architrave with twin fascias. The entablature is indeed very small, the architrave and frieze together being less than 35cm in height, far smaller for example than those depicted later in a drawing of the portal of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger’s Palazzo Baldassini (Fol. 48v/Ashby 82), which together are almost double the size (60cm tall). It could, therefore, have been intended for a window or tabernacle, possibly a modern-day one although the omission of the cornice is difficult to explain.

The drawing is on a piece of paper that was carefully cut out to replace a similar piece removed from the page, presumably to correct an earlier error. This was achieved by silhouetting the left edge of the already-executed drawing next to it, and cutting the new piece of paper to fit this profile.

The drawings on this sheet are the first in the compilation of a lengthy sequence of entablatures and cornices (see Cat. Drawing 2).

Ashby 1904, p. 40
Census, ID 44995

Drawing

Digitisation of the Codex Coner has been made possible through the generosity of the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance, Berlin.

If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk