To an approximate scale of 1:190

colu[m]na. an/toniana. uo/catur. altitu/ do. Ped[es].177/ cum. gradi/bus .206./ foramina/ 56. in qua/ uictoriae./ et. res. ge/st[a]e. ant[onioni]./ imp[eratori]. scul/pt[a]e. sunt/ houoli.24/ et. 24. cana/les (‘It is called the Antonine column: height 177 feet, with 206 steps; 56 panels in which victories and the deeds of the Emperor Antoninus are sculpted; 24 ovuli and 24 channels’); b. 501/1. cum. basa. et. Capitulo (‘50½ braccia with base and capital’); [measurements]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash

Bernardo della Volpaia

The column of Marcus Aurelius, erected in a dedicated precinct sometime around 180 CE (LTUR 1993–2000, 1, pp. 302–05), was modelled on Trajan’s Column, and it commemorated the military campaigns conducted by the emperor Marcus Aurelius (168–74 CE) against Germanic tribes, which are depicted, although not shown here, in the sculptural reliefs winding around the shaft (see Beckmann 2011). Standing on a tall pedestal rising from a stepped podium, the column itself is 100 Roman feet (29.6m) in height, and originally supported a statue of the emperor. By the later sixteenth century, however, the podium was buried to a depth of six metres and the pedestal and column were already in alarming states of disrepair, which finally led to a comprehensive restoration of the monument commissioned, in 1589, by Pope Sixtus V from the architect Domenico Fontana. This restoration saw the removal of the bands of reliefs depicting Victories from the top level of the podium, the re-facing of the pedestal, the repair of the column and its capital, and the placing on its top of a bronze statue of St Paul, to form a pendant to the statue of St Peter recently installed at the top of Trajan’s Column.

The Coner drawing records what could be seen of the monument – aside from the sculpted reliefs – in the early sixteenth century. It shows the top two levels of the podium, a bottom level emerging from the ground and lacking its original facing and the one above decorated with Victories (not shown), and these are followed by three further levels (made into tidy rectangles) comprising the remains of the column-supporting pedestal. The podium and the pedestal accommodate three small apertures for lighting the internal staircase, with a further ten apertures piercing the column shaft. On top of the capital is the cylindrical plinth that supported the statue of the emperor, which appears to have a damaged upper surface. The column has a measured height of 50½ braccia (29.4m), which is close to its actual height of 29.6m. The annotation giving the height as 177 feet (52.3m) – as well as putting the number of steps at 206 – must be an error, although a drawing by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger would give a dimension of 176 feet and specify a similar number of steps, just as Francesco Albertini had done in his recently published guide to Rome (Albertini 1510, 2, Chapter 7, fol. Oiii r).

There are no surviving drawings that are close equivalents.

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Antonio da Sangallo the Younger] Florence, GDSU, 1153 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 85; Frommel–Schelbert 2022, 1, pp. 114–16)

Ashby 1904, p. 40
Census, ID 44921

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

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