To an approximate scale of 1:340

[Drawing] 34 [early seventeenth-century hand] [Mount] 40 [x2]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

[Drawing] Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over stylus lines and compass pricks; on half a double sheet of laid paper (233x336mm), stitching holes along left edge, rounded corners at right, inlaid (back-to-front with respect to original foliation) [Mount] Frame lines, in pen and dark brown ink, 10mm apart; window (225x161mm)

Bernardo della Volpaia

See recto

This section of the Colosseum represents the building along its transverse axis, where there are a greater number of arches of different height than along the longitudinal axis. It focuses on the amphitheatre’s substructure, omitting the seating in the cavea and many of the structure’s upper elements. At ground level, it shows the two tall annular corridors towards the left, followed by three arches of decreasing size, and then the tall annular corridor under the seating, after which come two small arches again of decreasing in size and, finally, a lower annular corridor close to the arena. At first floor level, it depicts a tall outer annular corridor and a lower inner one surmounted by yet another at mezzanine level, and then two portals and an arch followed by a few steps up to a new floor level, raised to clear the vault of the annular corridor underneath. To help the viewer imagine the substructure in its context, the drawing shows all four storeys of the exterior elevation.

As mounted in the seventeenth century album, this drawing comes third in the sequence of sectional drawings of the Colosseum but, in the original compilation, it was in fact the first. This change in sequence came about because the drawing on the other side of the sheet (Fol. 25 recto and flap/Ashby 39) covers a double page, and this was mounted in the album with the left half – rather than the right half – inlaid and with the right half acting as a flap, so that the rear side of the left half – this page – originally came first and the rear side of the flap (Folio 25 verso of flap/Ashby 39A) came last.

Of the three sections, this one is the most cautious and in not showing the seating has the fewest elements of reconstruction, and, as such, it provided a good introduction to the group, although it is not complete at its top and right-hand extremities. Missing is much of the third storey and the cavea, as well as the area closest to the arena, and, while this might be taken to imply that the drawing was unfinished, it may instead indicate a strategy of recording only the parts of the structure for which clear physical evidence survived, which is also seen in the Coner plans of the Colosseum (e.g. Fol. 2r/Ashby 2). It is certainly notable for its objective accuracy and precision, and it corresponds closely with the equivalent section given in Cresy and Taylor (1821–22, pl. 119), except in a few minor details associated largely with heights. The passageway linking the two outer annular corridors with the inner one is shown in the drawing with three arches that diminish in both height and width whereas, in actuality, the arches all rise to the same height and the central one is narrower and stilted. The annular corridor closest to the arena (4 in diagram) is shown in the drawing as being taller than the two arches that precede it whereas, in reality, it is not quite as tall as either of them. Judging the relative heights of arches in the Colosseum was – and still is – difficult as the ground floor is not flat, and it was then partly filled with debris, as a topographical drawing in the Codex Escurialensis most vividly illustrates. While level in the outer annular corridors, the floor level rises to the third corridor under the seating before descending to the corridor closest to the arena (Corazza-Lombardi 2002, p. 47). This feature, unobserved until the advent of modern surveys, thus affected how the internal heights were determined and would have had a considerable impact on the accurate representation of sections. The Coner drawing includes no measurements, because these are provided on the other sections, a practice again seen in some of the Colosseum plans (compare Fols 2r/Ashby 2 and 2v/Ashby 3).

The only other equivalent section of the Colosseum to survive from the Renaissance period is a later one in Vienna, which seems not to be dependent on the Coner drawing, as it provides much more information about the brick and stonework and differs in details such as making the three arches between the two outer annular corridors and the middle one uniform in height.

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Anon.] El Escorial, Real Monasterio, 28-II-12 (Codex Escurialensis), fol. 24v (Egger 1905–06, p. 88); [Anon. Italian B] Vienna, Albertina, inv. Egger no. 28r (Egger 1903, p. 21; Valori 1985, p. 68)

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 2r/Ashby 2; Fol. 2v/Ashby 3; Fol. 3r/Ashby 4; Fol. 3v/Ashby 5; Fol. 25r and flap/Ashby 39; Fol. 25 verso of flap/Ashby 39A; Fol. 26r/Ashby 41; Fol. 66r/Ashby 113; Fol. 66v/Ashby 114; Fol. 83v/Ashby 137

Ashby 1904, p. 30
Günther 1988, p. 337
Census, ID 43744

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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