Not known

[Drawing] 6 [early seventeenth-century hand] [Mount] 10 [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 laid paper (232x154mm), trimmed (rounded corners absent, formerly at right), inlaid (window on verso of mount) [Verso] Blank [Mount] Frame lines, in pen and dark brown ink, 10mm apart [Verso of mount] Window (223x147mm)

Bernardo della Volpaia

[Drawing] None [Mount] Fleur-de-lys in circle surmounted with crown (variant 1; cut by bottom edge of window)

This square building has entrances at the centres of all four of its sides, each of which opens into a bi-apsidal vestibule with its ends screened by colonnades, and in turn leads through to an octagonal space at the building’s centre. This central space has an octagonal ambulatory with four large niches on the diagonals giving access to spiral staircases, indicating that the structure is at least two storeys in height. The bi-apsidal vestibules also provide entry into square rooms at the building’s corners, creating a continuous internal circuit through the structure.

The plan, which was left unfinished, is not of any known ancient building and neither is it closely related to any recent building constructed in Rome or anywhere else. It is probably not for an ecclesiastical building, especially since no altar is indicated, although a plan devised a little later (1518/19) by Jacopo Sansovino for San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, which is described by Giorgio Vasari as similar to a diagrammatic square plan illustrated by Sebastiano Serlio in Book Two of his treatise (Vasari–Milanesi 1878–85, 7, pp. 497–98; Serlio 1619, 2, fol. 24r), could have had a broadly comparable composition. Instead, it probably represents a scheme for a domestic building. Analogous plans include two theoretical schemes for civic palaces with octagonal colonnaded courtyards by Francesco di Giorgio Martini in his Codex Magliabecchiano, with other schemes by him also being similar (see S. Frommel 2004), while a project by Giuliano da Sangallo in the Codex Barberini for a villa, possibly Villa Medici at Poggio a Caiano, has an octagonal court with niches on the diagonal axes that are associated with circular staircases. Other features of the design similarly have equivalents in schemes by Giuliano, such as the combination of piers with pairs of columns, which is used for the periphery of the central court in his palace project for the king of Naples, as likewise recorded in the Codex Barberini. It is likely, therefore, that the Coner scheme originated from the Sangallo circle, given Bernardo della Volpaia’s close association with it, and considering that other Sangallo-connected projects are also found in the codex, including one for St Peter’s probably devised by Giuliano himself (see Cat. Fol. 10r/Ashby 17). Comparable villa projects were devised subsequently by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (S. Frommel 2018).

The drawing probably records an unrealised project rather than a purely theoretical design since there are no drawings of this latter sort in the codex. Its position in the book is also intriguing since it is the first drawing of a modern scheme, coming immediately after the plans of the Colosseum and the Baths of Diocletian. Perhaps it was included, and given this privileged position, because of its planning similarities with bath complexes, the bi-apsidal vestibules with columnar screens being especially close to one of the halls shown in the Baths of Diocletian drawing (Fol. 5r and flap/Ashby 8).

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Francesco di Giorgio] Florence, BNC, Codex Magliabecchiano, II. I. 141, fol. 24v (Maltese 1967, 2, p. 560 and pl 208); [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fols 8v and 39v [palace for the King of Naples] (Hülsen 1910, 1, pp. 16 and 56; Borsi 1985, pp. 395–404); ibid., fol. 9r [villa project] (Hülsen 1910, 1, pp. 16-17; Borsi 1985, pp. 404–09).

Ashby 1904, p. 15
Ashby 1913, p. 190

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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