To an approximate scale of 1:8

[Mount] 70 [x2]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

[Drawing] Pen and brown ink over stylus lines; on laid paper (232x166mm), rounded corners at left, inlaid [Mount] Frame lines, in pen and dark brown ink, 10mm apart; window (223x157mm)

Bernardo della Volpaia

See recto

As Gustavo Giovannoni suggested to Ashby (Ashby 1913), this drawing shows the profile of the octagonal well-head in the cloister of Rome’s San Pietro in Vincoli, the sequence of mouldings and the dimensions corresponding exactly. According to Vasari, in his ‘Life’ of Simona Mosca, it was designed by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, who ‘employed [Simone] Mosca to adorn it with some beautiful masks’ (Dopo, il medesimo Sangallo, che facea condurre nel chiostro di San Piero in Vincola la bocca di quel pozzo, fece fare al Mosca le sponde con alcuni mascheroni bellissimi; Vasari–Milanesi 1878–85, 6, p. 299). Designed in 1512/13 (see Marchini 1964) and certainly before the death of Pope Julius II (February 1513) whose arms its bears, it was probably carved at around the time the codex was being produced. Its depiction in the codex, therefore, may well have been based on one of Sangallo’s project drawings. The well-head’s patron was Julius II’s cousin, Leonardo Grosso della Rovere (1464–1520), who had become the titular cardinal of the church in 1508.

The inclusion in the codex of this work by Antonio da Sangallo is not surprising given that Bernardo della Volpaia was part of Sangallo’s équipe and that he also made Coner drawings of four other designs by Sangallo (Fols 48v/Ashby 82, 67r/Ashby 115 and 68r/Ashby 116 Drawings 5 and 9). The well-head is of an innovative design recalling large antique vases, and, indeed, its huge ‘handles’, not shown in the drawing but belonging to the well-head as executed, make it resemble such ancient vases as the stone example once in Piazza Santa Maria Maggiore (Fol. 85v/Ashby 143).

Ashby 1904, p. 40
Ashby 1913, pp. 204–05
Günther 1988, p. 337

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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