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Drawing 1: Trajan’s Column
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Reference number
SM volume 115/69a
Purpose
Drawing 1: Trajan’s Column
Aspect
Perspectival elevation, with measurements
Scale
To an approximate scale of 1:190
Inscribed
colu[m]na. traianj/ imp. inqua scul/ptae sunt. uicto/riae. et. res. ab/ ipso. traiano/ p[er] mediu[m]. colu[m]/n[a]e. sunt. Gra/dus. 185. in/ eode[m]. marmore/ sculp[ti]. spiracula/ 45. scriptio. talis/ est. (‘The column of Trajan emperor on which are sculpted the victories and the things [done] by Trajan himself around the middle of the column. There are 185 steps carved from the same marble. The composition is in 45 spiralling scenes.’);
[Inscribed on monument but positioned in drawing beside it] S. P. Q. R/ Imp. caesari. divi. nervae. F. nervae./ traiano. aug. germanic. dagico. pont./ max. trib. pot. 17. cos. 6 p. p./ ad declara/[n]dum. Qua[n]tae. al/titudinis./ mons et. locus. sit aegestus
(= CIL, 6, 960: SENATVS. POPVLVSQVE. ROMANVS/ IMP. CAESARI. DIVI. NERVAE. F. NERVAE/ TRAIANO. AVG. GERM. DACICO. PONTIF./ MAXIMO. TRIB. POT. XVII. IMP. VI. COS. VI. P. P./ AD DECALARANDVM. QVANTAE. ALTITVDINIS. MONS. ET. LOCVS TANT[IS OPE]RIBVS. SIT. EGESTVS);
Secundu[m] fra[n]cis[cum]/albertinu[m]. alti/tudinis. est./pedes. 128. (‘According to Francesco Albertini, the height is 128 feet’); b. 50. cum. baxa. et capitulo (‘50 braccia with base and capital’); [measurements]
[Inscribed on monument] S.P.Q.R.IM (i.e. the beginning of CIL, 6, 960 fully transcribed to the side)
Signed and dated
- c.1513/14
Datable to c.1513/14
Medium and dimensions
Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash
Hand
Bernardo della Volpaia
Notes
Trajan’s column, erected in 113 CE, was the centrepiece of Trajan’s Forum and was positioned just to the north of the Basilica Ulpia and between a matching pair of libraries (LTUR 1993–2000, 2, pp. 356–59). Standing on an enormous pedestal, the eventual home of the emperor’s ashes, it has a height of 100 Roman feet (29.6m) and rises to a platform that supports the cylindrical plinth originally for the emperor’s statue (cf. Fol. 76r/Ashby 129). Inside the column is a spiral staircase of 185 steps, while on the outside are the renowned sculpted reliefs, winding around it twenty-two times, which chronicle the wars with the Dacians (101–06 CE). By the fifteenth century, virtually nothing could be seen of the ancient forum, which lay beneath a very densely developed area of the post-medieval city, but the column remained almost completely intact, aside from the crowning statue which had vanished centuries before. Although its immediate peripheries were cleared during the time of Pope Paul III (Lanciani 1989–2002, 2, pp. 131–40), it still remained hemmed in by neighbouring structures, as is seen in a mid- sixteenth-century drawing by Giovannantonio Dosio, later issued as a print by Giovanni Battista De’Cavalieri in 1569, and the pedestal was still largely buried even at this date. A bronze statue of St Peter was installed on the top of the column in 1588.
In this drawing, the column is shown from the front, as if freed of all encumbrances, although without its copious sculptural embellishments. The pedestal is a little too short and, rather surprisingly, has the door gaining access to the interior omitted (as it is on Fol. 76r/Ashby 129), perhaps because it was buried and was simply forgotten by the draftsman – despite the fact that the internal staircase with its 185 steps is specifically referred to (and partly recorded on Fol. 76r/Ashby 129). As regards the column shaft, the helical outlines of the sculpted reliefs are indicated, as are the ten small apertures for the internal staircase, together with the shaft’s diminishing diameters at these same points, which all implies that the column had been recently ascended and carefully measured. The cylindrical plinth at the top of the column is shown as having a rectangular aperture (added as a late pentimento), but not a domed covering, as it was reconstructed in various other images, and instead as continuing beyond the sheet’s top edge and thus without speculating about how the ruined apex might have originally appeared (see also entries for Fol. 76r/Ashby 129). The column’s height is given as 50 braccia (29.2m), and so a little less than its actual height, while an annotation puts the height of the monument as a whole at 128 feet (38m), citing the authority of the Florentine Francesco Albertini whose guide to Rome had recently been published, which specifically provides this information as well as giving the number of interior stairs (Albertini 1510, 2, Chapter 7, fols Oiii v–Oiii r).
In emphasising the column’s structure and dimensions, the Coner drawing differs from the earlier image of it that Giuliano da Sangallo had included in his Codex Barberini, which highlights the sculptural enrichments but supplies no measurements. It differs in this respect too from the few other images of the entire column made before the mid- sixteenth century, which include a woodcut first published in the third book (1540) of Sebastiano Serlio’s treatise and an engraved view published by Antonio Lafreri (1544). Serlio’s plate is of some interest, however, because it shows the column in the company of various obelisks, an arrangement anticipated by the Coner drawing and probably followed in other drawings that are now lost. The engraving of the column by Antonio Labacco (1552) is one of the earliest surviving images to feature a vertical section showing the spiral staircase inside.
The inscription on the pedestal accords with the version of it recently published by Albertini, and it is transcribed mostly correctly, except for a minor omission and the word Dacico being given as Dagico.
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 18r (Hülsen 1910, p. 28; Borsi 1985, pp. 112–16); Serlio 1619, 3, fol. 78r; [Circle of Antonio Lafreri] Speculum romanae magnificentiae (Hülsen 1921, p. 148); Labacco 1552, unpaginated (fol. 14); Giovannantonio Dosio] Florence, GDSU, 2537 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 132); De’Cavalieri 1569 (unpaginated; see Borsi 1970, no. 35)
OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 53r/Ashby 91; Fol. 64r/Ashby 109; Fol. 76r/Ashby 129
In this drawing, the column is shown from the front, as if freed of all encumbrances, although without its copious sculptural embellishments. The pedestal is a little too short and, rather surprisingly, has the door gaining access to the interior omitted (as it is on Fol. 76r/Ashby 129), perhaps because it was buried and was simply forgotten by the draftsman – despite the fact that the internal staircase with its 185 steps is specifically referred to (and partly recorded on Fol. 76r/Ashby 129). As regards the column shaft, the helical outlines of the sculpted reliefs are indicated, as are the ten small apertures for the internal staircase, together with the shaft’s diminishing diameters at these same points, which all implies that the column had been recently ascended and carefully measured. The cylindrical plinth at the top of the column is shown as having a rectangular aperture (added as a late pentimento), but not a domed covering, as it was reconstructed in various other images, and instead as continuing beyond the sheet’s top edge and thus without speculating about how the ruined apex might have originally appeared (see also entries for Fol. 76r/Ashby 129). The column’s height is given as 50 braccia (29.2m), and so a little less than its actual height, while an annotation puts the height of the monument as a whole at 128 feet (38m), citing the authority of the Florentine Francesco Albertini whose guide to Rome had recently been published, which specifically provides this information as well as giving the number of interior stairs (Albertini 1510, 2, Chapter 7, fols Oiii v–Oiii r).
In emphasising the column’s structure and dimensions, the Coner drawing differs from the earlier image of it that Giuliano da Sangallo had included in his Codex Barberini, which highlights the sculptural enrichments but supplies no measurements. It differs in this respect too from the few other images of the entire column made before the mid- sixteenth century, which include a woodcut first published in the third book (1540) of Sebastiano Serlio’s treatise and an engraved view published by Antonio Lafreri (1544). Serlio’s plate is of some interest, however, because it shows the column in the company of various obelisks, an arrangement anticipated by the Coner drawing and probably followed in other drawings that are now lost. The engraving of the column by Antonio Labacco (1552) is one of the earliest surviving images to feature a vertical section showing the spiral staircase inside.
The inscription on the pedestal accords with the version of it recently published by Albertini, and it is transcribed mostly correctly, except for a minor omission and the word Dacico being given as Dagico.
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 18r (Hülsen 1910, p. 28; Borsi 1985, pp. 112–16); Serlio 1619, 3, fol. 78r; [Circle of Antonio Lafreri] Speculum romanae magnificentiae (Hülsen 1921, p. 148); Labacco 1552, unpaginated (fol. 14); Giovannantonio Dosio] Florence, GDSU, 2537 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 132); De’Cavalieri 1569 (unpaginated; see Borsi 1970, no. 35)
OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 53r/Ashby 91; Fol. 64r/Ashby 109; Fol. 76r/Ashby 129
Literature
Ashby 1904, p. 39
Ashby 1913, p. 204
Günther 1988, p. 337
Census, ID 44882
Ashby 1913, p. 204
Günther 1988, p. 337
Census, ID 44882
Level
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