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Drawing 1. Mausoleum of the Plautii at Ponte Lucano on the Via Tiburtina
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Reference number
SM volume 115/49a
Purpose
Drawing 1. Mausoleum of the Plautii at Ponte Lucano on the Via Tiburtina
Aspect
Perspectival elevation, with measurements
Scale
To an approximate scale of 1:70
Inscribed
estra. pontem. lucanum (‘Beyond the Ponte Lucano’); [measurements]
[Inscribed on monument] M. PLAVTIVS. M. A. F. И./ .SILVAИVS./ .COS. VII. VIR. EPVLOИ./ HVIC. SEИATVS. TRIVИFALIA/ ORИAME[N]TA. DECREVIT./ OB. RES. IИ. ILYRICO./ .BENE. GESTAS./ .LARTIA. CИ. F. VXOR./ .A. PLAVTIVS. M. F./ .VRGVLAИIVS./ VIXIT. AИИI. IX.
(= CIL, 14, 3606: M[ARCVS] PLAVTIVS M[ARCI] F[ILIVS] A[VLI] N[EPOS]/ SILVANVS/ CO[N]S[VL] VII VIR EPVLON[VM]/ HVIC SENATVS TRIVMPHALIA/ ORNAMENTA DECREVIT OB/ RES IN IL[L]YRICO BENE GESTAS/ LARTIA CN[AEI] F[ILIA] VXOR/ A[VLUS] PLAVTIUS M[ARCI] F[ILIVS]/ VRGVLANIVS/ VIXIT ANN[OS] IX)
Signed and dated
- c.1513/14
Datable to c.1513/14
Medium and dimensions
Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over stylus lines and compass pricks
Hand
Bernardo della Volpaia
Notes
Located, as the caption indicates, close to the Ponte Lucano which crosses the River Aniene near Tivoli, the mausoleum shown here is identified by a surviving inscription (CIL, 14, 3606) as that of Marcus Plautius, a leading military and political figure in Rome who held the post of consul alongside Augustus in 2 CE (see Impeciati 2006, pp. 14 and 57–61). It must have been built after 9 CE, the year that Plautius along with other Roman generals was awarded a triumph for suppressing the Great Illyrian revolt, which the inscription also mentions. The mausoleum is circular in plan but was screened at the front by an attached façade, of which enough survives to know that it was five bays wide, each separated by half-columns raised on pedestals. The central wider bay was filled with an enormous extant plaque bearing an inscription, while those to either side accommodated blind arches and further inscriptions.
The Coner drawing ignores the central cylindrical part of the mausoleum and focuses instead on the facade. It represents just three of its five bays: the central one and the two to the right, which have plaques of differing sizes. It also shows that the final bay at the right, which has now vanished, was partly extant at the time. As initially conceived, the drawing included the mistake of adding an extra bay further to the right, an error that was realised only after cap and base mouldings of the pedestal had been inked in (now partly disguised by the separate drawing of mouldings to the drawing’s right.
This representation seems unrelated to other early drawings of the facade, which tend to belong to reconstructions of the whole building, as is the case with those in Giuliano da Sangallo’s Codex Barberini and the Codex Mellon and others by Baldassare Peruzzi and ‘Pseudo-Cronaca’. None represents the building in its fragmentary state, as does the Coner image, apart from a sketch by Peruzzi produced around 1519 (GDSU, 2111 Ar), and this similarly shows an end bay (the one on the right) with a small-size plaque at the bottom, an observation also included in the ‘Pseudo-Cronaca’ representation. In avoiding reconstruction, and in showing only what was in evidence, the Coner drawing gives little sense, however, of what the building looked like as a whole. It may well be the case that this problem could have been resolved by providing a plan or a more entire depiction of the mausoleum, but, if so, this never happened.
Despite the care taken to record just what was visible, there are nevertheless minor inaccuracies in recording the inscription: for example, the ‘PH’ in triumphalia is recorded as an ‘F’; there is a grammatical error in adding an ‘I’ to the end of ‘ANN’, and the ‘N’s are reversed unlike in the actual inscription (see also Fol. 1/Ashby 1), suggesting that the drawing was not actually based on first-hand observation. As with many others in the codex, it shows the structure not from a vantage point on the axis of symmetry but from beyond the right corner so that its right side can be seen. It is not placed with the other mausolea included in the compilation and it originally faced the drawings of the outer wall of the Forum of Augustus and the Cancelleria (Fol. 37r/Ashby 59), which are unrelated typologically, although it bears some distant similarity with the latter in having an order rising from a pedestal zone. It was copied, later, by Michelangelo.
RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] Florence, CB, 2Av: right side (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 48; Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 106–07)
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol 41v (Hülsen 1910, 1, pp. xlii and 58; Borsi 1985, pp. 209–11); [Domenico Aimo (Il Varignana), attr.] New York, Morgan Library, Codex Mellon, fol. 5v; [Baldassare Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 2111 Ar (Vasori 1981, pp. 85–86; Wurm 1985, pl. 85); [Baldassare Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 532 A4 (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 52); [‘Pseudo-Cronaca’] Florence, GDSU, 157 Sr (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 9)
OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 31r (Ashby 49) Drawing 2
The Coner drawing ignores the central cylindrical part of the mausoleum and focuses instead on the facade. It represents just three of its five bays: the central one and the two to the right, which have plaques of differing sizes. It also shows that the final bay at the right, which has now vanished, was partly extant at the time. As initially conceived, the drawing included the mistake of adding an extra bay further to the right, an error that was realised only after cap and base mouldings of the pedestal had been inked in (now partly disguised by the separate drawing of mouldings to the drawing’s right.
This representation seems unrelated to other early drawings of the facade, which tend to belong to reconstructions of the whole building, as is the case with those in Giuliano da Sangallo’s Codex Barberini and the Codex Mellon and others by Baldassare Peruzzi and ‘Pseudo-Cronaca’. None represents the building in its fragmentary state, as does the Coner image, apart from a sketch by Peruzzi produced around 1519 (GDSU, 2111 Ar), and this similarly shows an end bay (the one on the right) with a small-size plaque at the bottom, an observation also included in the ‘Pseudo-Cronaca’ representation. In avoiding reconstruction, and in showing only what was in evidence, the Coner drawing gives little sense, however, of what the building looked like as a whole. It may well be the case that this problem could have been resolved by providing a plan or a more entire depiction of the mausoleum, but, if so, this never happened.
Despite the care taken to record just what was visible, there are nevertheless minor inaccuracies in recording the inscription: for example, the ‘PH’ in triumphalia is recorded as an ‘F’; there is a grammatical error in adding an ‘I’ to the end of ‘ANN’, and the ‘N’s are reversed unlike in the actual inscription (see also Fol. 1/Ashby 1), suggesting that the drawing was not actually based on first-hand observation. As with many others in the codex, it shows the structure not from a vantage point on the axis of symmetry but from beyond the right corner so that its right side can be seen. It is not placed with the other mausolea included in the compilation and it originally faced the drawings of the outer wall of the Forum of Augustus and the Cancelleria (Fol. 37r/Ashby 59), which are unrelated typologically, although it bears some distant similarity with the latter in having an order rising from a pedestal zone. It was copied, later, by Michelangelo.
RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] Florence, CB, 2Av: right side (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 48; Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 106–07)
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol 41v (Hülsen 1910, 1, pp. xlii and 58; Borsi 1985, pp. 209–11); [Domenico Aimo (Il Varignana), attr.] New York, Morgan Library, Codex Mellon, fol. 5v; [Baldassare Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 2111 Ar (Vasori 1981, pp. 85–86; Wurm 1985, pl. 85); [Baldassare Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 532 A4 (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 52); [‘Pseudo-Cronaca’] Florence, GDSU, 157 Sr (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 9)
OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 31r (Ashby 49) Drawing 2
Literature
Ashby 1904, p. 34
Census, ID 48097
Census, ID 48097
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