To an approximate scale of 1:42

[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

The cornice is one from a Doric building, to judge from the profile of the corona and the presence of a cavetto moulding at the top, and it is of colossal size, measuring 1.35m in height (3 braccia 20 minutes). It is about twice the height of the Doric cornice of the Theatre of Marcellus (1 braccio 13 minutes: Fol. 45v/Ashby 76), much taller than the one from the portico of the Pantheon (2 braccia 59 minutes: Fol. 38r/Ashby 61) and even bigger than the cornice of the enormous Temple of Serapis (3 braccia 12 minutes: Fol. 48r/Ashby 81). The only example of a Doric order of comparable scale for a modern structure was the one designed by Bramante for the exterior of the Choir of Nicholas V at St Peter’s (Fol. 43r/Ashby 71), but the cornice for this was never executed, while the mouldings that were realised beneath its corona were of different design to those seen here. Otherwise, there is little about its design that is especially distinctive. The corona’s soffit is not adorned with guttae or other customary features, although such decoration would normally be expected in a corona design with a zigzag profile beneath the drip moulding above. The cavetto moulding at the top suggests the cornice is probably antique rather than modern, the cavetto being preferred to the gola commonly seen in early sixteenth-century designs, and the moulding used for the Theatre of Marcellus (Fol. 45v/Ashby 76) and the Doric tomb on the Via Nomentana (Fol. 45r/Ashby 75).

The cornice’s profile was copied by Michelangelo.

RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] Florence, CB 3Av: left side (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 50; Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 120–21)

Ashby 1904, p. 41
Census, ID 44972

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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