To an approximate scale of 1:12

.C[orona]. Tenpli. de tibure (‘Cornice of the temple at Tivoli’); [h]abet. canales. 20 (‘It has 20 flutes’); [measurements] [Inscribed on monument) HPOELLIO. L.F (= CIL, 6, 945: [CVRAN]TE L[VCIO] GELLIO L[VCI] F[ILIO])

• c.1513/14
  c.1513/14

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

Bernardo della Volpaia

The detail, identified by its caption, is from the so-called Temple of Vesta at Tivoli (first century BCE), the circular building covered more extensively in a previous drawing (Fol. 14v/Ashby 24). It was inserted into the space between the left edge of this page and the drawing to its right, but this still necessitated the erasure of part of the earlier drawing, and it still did not allow the new drawing to be fully completed at it left-hand extremity. The entablature is represented fairly accurately, as are the unusual flutes of the shaft, which have flat rather than curved ends – and are correctly recorded as being unusually twenty, rather than twenty-four, in number. The capital, however, is depicted erroneously, since, in reality, it is of non-standard design, with notably squat proportions, over-sized volutes and an enormous central flower. Although recorded in its correct form by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, it is shown in a similarly regularised manner in various other early drawings, such as one by Giuliano da Sangallo in the Codex Barberini, as well as in the illustration of it published by Sebastiano Serlio in Book Three (1540) of his architectural treatise. The inscription on the upper fascia of the architrave is transcribed particularly poorly. The misrepresented capital was copied in part by Michelangelo.

RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] London, BM, inv. 1859-6-25-560/2r (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 45; Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 98–99)

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 42 (Hülsen 1910, p. 58; Borsi 1985, pp. 211–13; [Antonio da Sangallo the Younger] Florence, GDSU, 1216 Ar (Vasori 1981, pp. 140–42; Frommel–Schelbert 2022, 1, pp. 147–48); Serlio 1619, 3, fol. 60v

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 14v/Ashby 24; Fol. 20r/Ashby 32

Ashby 1904, p. 47
Census, ID 45349

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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