To an approximate scale of 1:220

anphiteatri. do/mitiani. (‘Of the amphitheatre of Domitian’)

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

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

Bernardo della Volpaia

This drawing is the only one among the Coner depictions of the Colosseum, here named the ’amphitheatre of Domitian’ (see Cat. Fol. 2r/Ashby 2), to represent the exterior and it depicts the three central bays of what must be the structure’s long northern side. That these three bays are shown is clear from the width dimensions of the central arch (8½ braccia) and those to either side (7⅖ braccia), dimensions that correspond with those on one of the ground-level plans (Fol. 2v/Ashby 3); and that it is the long northern side is also suggested by the fact that this where the exterior survives intact. The drawing shows all four storeys in curving perspective, three arcaded and the fourth blind. Its principal purpose was to record the elevational composition, which it does except in two minor respects. One is that it includes, at the top of the building, some (but not all) of the wooden posts that would once have supported an awning (velarium; see also Cat. Fol. 66r/Ashby 113 Drawing 4); and the other is that it depicts the structure, which was then partly buried, as standing on a base of four imagined steps. The drawing is also a vehicle for indicating measurements, which are confined largely to the right-hand bay, and distributed according to a system similar to one seen elsewhere in the codex (cf. Fol. 22r/Ashby 34), the outermost piers of each storey carrying horizontal measurements, and those to their left recording heights.

The drawing appears closely related to an elevational drawing by Giuliano da Sangallo in his Codex Barberini, even though that drawing represents the exterior as flat rather than curved. Sangallo’s drawing shows exactly the same three bays of the exterior, the label entrata di mezzo (’entrance in the middle’) being explicit in this regard. It also shows the posts and rigging for the awning and a stepped base, and identical too are its measurements. Notwithstanding these similarities, there are also differences. Apart from showing the building as curving, the Coner drawing represents it as if looking at it on axis rather than obliquely, as well as from a very high position (typical of the compilation) as if the spectator were at the height of the middle of the third storey rather than at ground level. It is likely that these modifications were made to enable the building to be more comprehensible to a non-specialist by suggesting the shape of the plan through the elevation as well as to make it consistent with the way elevations were represented elsewhere in the codex. There are also certain minor differences of detailing. The Coner drawing does not indicate any joints in the masonry, which are very prominent in the Sangallo depiction. It also shows the top-storey windows differently, doing away with the rusticated surround of the one in the pedestal zone and replacing it with a simple frame, and also adding frames to those higher up, even though there are no frames there in reality, which suggests that the changes could have been based on certain erroneous sources of information.

The Coner drawing also resembles one attributed to Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, but this is because they both derive from the Barberini elevation. It differs significantly, however, from other early drawings, including the one found in Giuliano da Sangallo’s earlier Taccuino Senese, which shows four not three bays, and misrepresents the top storey by depicting it with two levels of windows in each bay and not just one, as in the Coner drawing and the actual structure, where a high-level window alternates with another set lower down. This same mistake was then repeated in the two-bay elevation first published by Sebastiano Serlio much later in 1540.

Considering that the codex opened with drawings of the Colosseum’s plan, it is perhaps surprising that this elevational drawing of the Colosseum does not occupy a corresponding position at the start of the codex’s section on elevations, which may imply a reorganisation of material at some early point. The drawing’s caption refers to the Emperor Domitian (cf. Fol. 2r/Ashby 2), and so does not identify the building particularly clearly, which would be why it was unambiguously labelled as the elevation of the ‘Front of the Colisseum’ in a nineteenth-century annotation on the mount.

RELATED IMAGES: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 68v (Hülsen 1910, 1, p. 22; Borsi 1985, pp. 254–59)

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Siena, BCS, Ms. S.IV.8 (Taccuino Senese), fol. 7r (Borsi 1985, pp. 254-59); [Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, attr.] Florence, GDSU, 2043 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 30); Serlio 1619, fol. 81r.

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. 25v/Ashby 40; Fol. 66r/Ashby 113; Fol. 66v/Ashby 114; Fol. 83v/Ashby 137

Ashby 1904, p. 30
Günther 1988, p. 337
Census, ID 48019

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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