To an approximate scale of 1:150

[Drawing] .s. blaxii. (‘Of San Biagio’); [measurements]; 7 [early seventeenth-century hand] [Mount] 11 [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 (232x166mm), stitching holes along left edge, rounded corners at right, inlaid (window on verso of mount) [Mount] Frame lines, in pen and dark brown ink, 10mm apart

Bernardo della Volpaia

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

The caption of this drawing identifies the plan as that of San Biagio della Pagnotta, a church designed by Bramante c.1508 as part of the massive but largely unfinished complex of the Palazzo dei Tribunali on the Via Giulia in Rome (Bruschi 1969, pp. 946–59; Butters–Pagliara 2009). It was to have replaced an earlier church of the same name with its façade on Via Giulia (Ceccarelli 2000, pp. 5–6) but, because Bramante’s project was abandoned, the ancient church was never demolished. Bramante’s building was begun but altered soon afterwards and ultimately rededicated to Santi Giovita e Faustino, although it was popularly known as Sant’Anna dei Bresciani. It was destroyed during the construction of the Lungotevere in the late nineteenth century, but its outline is still discernible in a plan of 1860 (Ceccarelli 2000, p. 11).

The church was planned as a Latin cross with a short nave and three other arms terminating in apses, and a pair of presumed towers at the rear. Positioned at the back of the complex, it would have projected out towards the Tiber, with the towers and domed crossing visible from outside but the nave embedded in the body of the palace. The Coner drawing is the earliest of several surviving plans and internal elevations of the building. These include drawings in the Mellon Codex and by Antonio da Sangallo (two in the Uffizi), Aristotile da Sangallo (one in Florence and another in Munich), Antonio da Faenza and Andrea Palladio, and a plan of the whole complex by Baldassare Peruzzi. Although they mostly agree on the building’s basic shape, they disagree on certain of its details, which may suggest that Bramante produced several variant schemes, one represented by the Coner drawing and others informing the later drawings. Thus, the question of whether the Coner plan is more or less accurate than the others may be irrelevant. It certainly differs from all the others, however, in not having a pilaster at the centre of each apse, and from several of the others in representing the ancillary spaces (probably sacristies) beneath the rear towers as nearly square rather than circular or of more complex shape. The only drawing with any claim to be a project drawing is one of those by Bramante’s one-time assistant, Antonio da Sangallo (GDSU 1304 Ar), which is of rather different design but has a feature otherwise seen only in the Coner drawing – openings from the chamfered corners at the front of the crossing leading directly into the palace – which would again suggest that the Coner drawing was dependent on a scheme that was closely associated with Bramante. In other respects, however, the plan closest to the Coner drawing is the one by Peruzzi forming part of what appears to be a site survey of the entire complex, which differs from the Coner depiction only in having apsidal pilasters, two rather than four doors in the crossing, and sacristies with one of their corners that is notably cropped.

The part of the church projecting from the palace is drawn in full, showing both external and internal wall faces, whereas the part embedded in the palace has only the inner faces shown, indicating that the building was not an isolated structure. Showing only the faces of walls that are visible also tallies with a convention seen in certain Coner drawings of antiquities that record only what could actually be observed (see e.g. Cat. Fol. 13r and flap/Ashby 22). Other drawings such as those by Aristotile da Sangallo and in Windsor depict the church as if it were an isolated building.

The drawing was positioned in the original compilation immediately after the scheme probably for a modern villa (Fol. 6r/Ashby 10), and it is the first in the codex associated with Bramante. Its prominence, in coming before the plan of the Pantheon (Fol. 8r/Ashby 13), may indicate that it was considered somehow exceptional, or perhaps even that Bernardo della Volpaia was involved with the project in some way.

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, attr.] Florence, GDSU 1304 Ar (Frommel 1986, pp. 264–65); [Antonio da Sangallo the Younger] Florence, GDSU, 790 Ar [quarter plan towards right] (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 84; Frommel-Schebert 2022, 1, pp. 64-66); [Domenico Aimo (Il Varignana), attr.] New York, Morgan Library, Codex Mellon, fol. 58r; [Aristotile da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 1893 Ar (Ghisetti Giavarina 1990, p. 80); [Aristotile da Sangallo] Munich, Graphische Sammlung, inv. 35343 (Lotz 1956, p. 223, fig. 31); [Baldassare Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 109 Av (Butters–Pagliara 2009, p. 248; Wurm 1984, pl. 384); [Andrea Palladio] Vicenza, Museo Civico, inv. D 11v (Puppi 1989, p. 110); [Antonio da Faenza] Codex Bury, fol. 55v (Bury 1996, p. 33; Strauch 2019, 2, pp. 509–09); [Anon.] Windsor, RL 10452 (Davies–Hemsoll 2013, 1, pp. 88–91)

Ashby 1904, p. 15
Ashby 1913, p. 191
Bruschi 1969, pp. 946–59
Günther 1988, pp. 336–37

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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