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Folio 8 verso (Ashby 14): Palazzo Castellesi (subsequently Giraud-Torlonia)
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Reference number
SM volume 115/14
Purpose
Folio 8 verso (Ashby 14): Palazzo Castellesi (subsequently Giraud-Torlonia)
Aspect
Plan, with measurements
Scale
To an approximate scale of 1:330
Inscribed
[Drawing] .c[ardinalis]. adriani. (‘of Cardinal Adriano’); [measurements]
[Mount] 14 [x2]
Signed and dated
- c.1513/14
Datable to c.1513/14
Medium and dimensions
[Drawing] Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over stylus lines; on laid paper (232x164mm); rounded corners at left, inlaid
[Mount] Frame lines, in pen and dark brown ink, 10mm apart; window (224x159mm)
Hand
Bernardo della Volpaia
Watermark
See recto
Notes
The annotation on this plan referring to ‘Cardinal Adriano’ indicates that the scheme is for the palace of Cardinal Adriano Castellesi erected in the Vatican Borgo and now known as Palazzo Giraud-Torlonia. Precisely when the palace was begun is much debated (see Bruschi 1969, pp. 849–57; Bruschi 1989, pp. 5–44; Frommel 1973, 2, pp. 207–15; Strozzieri 2023, pp. 370–76), but construction could only have started after October 1501 when Castellesi acquired the site, and it may well postdate 1503 when he was appointed cardinal (Bruschi 1969, p. 850). It was certainly well underway in by March 1505 when it was given to King Henry VII of England for use as an embassy and a royal residence should he ever come to Rome (Bruschi 1969, pp. 850–51). Presumably at around this time, stone was brought from the Basilica Aemilia (see Cat. Fol. 46r/Ashby 77), which was being dismantled by the cardinal ‘to make his palace in the Borgo Nuovo’ (guasto dal cardinal Adrianno da corneto per farne il suo palazzo in borgo nuouo), as was later noted in a drawing of the basilica by Sallustio Peruzzi. Shortly afterwards, stones from the basilica are recorded as being on the Palazzo Castellesi site, as is recorded on a drawing by ‘Pseudo-Cronaca’ and a copy drawing by Palladio. The 1505 donation document describes it as adorned with travertine and marble but ‘not yet finished’, which must be a euphemism as the building then was far from complete. Eight years later, in 1513, Castellesi, who still had some control over construction, brought 300 cartloads of travertine to the site for further work, which came from near Porta Maggiore and was presumably antique material (Bruschi 1969, p. 851). The palace, therefore, was still under construction in 1513/14 when this drawing was made.
The plan shows a roughly square building that has a courtyard at its heart. To the front is a narrow entrance vestibule leading to the courtyard directly, from where access is provided to the rest of the building. The larger rooms are positioned at the front of the building, which did not accommodate shops, following the pattern of other large cardinals’ palaces such as Palazzo Venezia and, above all, the similarly designed Cancelleria (see Fol. 32r/Ashby 51). To the corridor’s right is a large reception room which has a discreet stairway hidden in the wall at the back (a commonplace feature of cardinal’s palaces described in Paolo Cortesi’s De cardinalatu of 1513 (Cortesi 1980, pp. 78–79), and in the equivalent space to the left are two smaller rooms. Along the two sides of the courtyard are other smaller rooms, while the area to the rear is left undefined.
The Coner plan corresponds in most particulars with the one published in the nineteenth century by Letarouilly (1984, 2, plate 145), although, as Ashby noted, there are several minor differences. In Letarouilly’s plan, the rooms to the sides of the courtyard have windows overlooking side roads, and the area to the rear is a garden. In addition, the room to the right of the entrance corridor is divided into two, the enfilade of doors in the left wing is absent, there are some discrepancies in room shapes (e.g. those of the entrance vestibule and the rooms on the righthand side beyond the main staircase), and the walls around the courtyard are articulated with pilasters. Many of these differences might be explained as internal alterations that were made subsequently, and the likelihood of this is suggested by the fact that the distribution, shape and size of the spaces in the range at the left flank of the palace corresponds closely to a plan of the piano nobile by Ottaviano Mascarino dating from the late sixteenth century. The possibility that the Coner drawing might be a copy of a project drawing was proposed by Bruschi (Bruschi 1989), in contrast to Frommel (Frommel 1973) who interpreted it as a survey of the building under construction. That the former hypothesis may be correct is suggested by the incomplete nature of the structure at the back, which may well express some degree of uncertainty, perhaps apparent in the drawing being copied, over what was being intended, especially since the confines of the building had still not been established by 1516 (Bruschi 1989, p. 12). Similar uncertainties are seen in other drawings, of both modern buildings such as San Biagio della Pagnotta (Fol. 7r/Ashby 11) and ancient monuments such as the Baths of Caracalla (Fol. 13r and flap/Ashby 22) and the Arch of Titus (Fol. 35r/Ashby 56). Strozzieri (2023) has observed that the measurements on the plan result in a building that has a broader frontage than the present structure, but whether this was the result of poor estimation of dimensions when copying a preliminary project or whether it was conceived for a slightly broader site is unclear.
The possibility that the Coner drawing was based on a previous plan then raises the question of who could have produced it. Giorgio Vasari attributed the palace’s design to Bramante (Vasari–Milanesi, 4, p. 155) and so the likelihood is that the Coner drawing copied a version of a scheme produced by Bramante himself. According to Bruschi’s careful analysis of the executed building, Bramante was directly responsible for the plan and for the very small portion of the façade up to the tops of the cellar windows (Bruschi 1969, p. 854), the rest of it being completed by another architect in a second campaign, which might well explain why the façade was not featured in the codex. A detail of a cornice included in the codex elsewhere (Fol. 67r/Ashby 115) is described as being ‘in the house’ of Cardinal Castellesi, but this does not correspond to any of the details of the structure as built and may have arrived with the antique material brought to the site in 1513 (see also Fol. 46r/Ashby 77).
Recording a palace scheme by Bramante reflects the great interest in the codex in his work, and it underlines the fact that most of the Coner drawings of modern buildings are of works of his. This drawing is among the first of modern buildings in the codex, coming soon after the plans of what is probably a villa (Fol. 6r/Ashby 10) and San Bramante’s Biagio (Fol. 7r/Ashby 11). Why it should have been privileged in the compilation is intriguing, but it could be that Bernardo della Volpaia, who lived in the Borgo nearby (Pagliara 1989b), had some special interest in the scheme and was perhaps in some way involved with it.
As with many other drawings in the codex, the plan is not executed precisely to scale but rather by eye, with the dimensions added in afterwards, those for example of the room to the right of the entrance being given as 18-by-33 braccia (proportions around 1 : 1.6) and not corresponding especially closely with what was actually drawn (proportions around 1 : 1.8).
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [‘Pseudo-Cronaca’] Florence, GDSU, 1632 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 18); [Andrea Palladio] Vicenza, Museo Civico, D 5v (Zorzi 1958, p. 104; Puppi 1989, pp. 103–04); [Sallustio Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 676 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 123; [Ottaviano Mascarino] Rome, ANSL, Fondo Mascarino, n. 2414 (Strozzieri 2023).
The plan shows a roughly square building that has a courtyard at its heart. To the front is a narrow entrance vestibule leading to the courtyard directly, from where access is provided to the rest of the building. The larger rooms are positioned at the front of the building, which did not accommodate shops, following the pattern of other large cardinals’ palaces such as Palazzo Venezia and, above all, the similarly designed Cancelleria (see Fol. 32r/Ashby 51). To the corridor’s right is a large reception room which has a discreet stairway hidden in the wall at the back (a commonplace feature of cardinal’s palaces described in Paolo Cortesi’s De cardinalatu of 1513 (Cortesi 1980, pp. 78–79), and in the equivalent space to the left are two smaller rooms. Along the two sides of the courtyard are other smaller rooms, while the area to the rear is left undefined.
The Coner plan corresponds in most particulars with the one published in the nineteenth century by Letarouilly (1984, 2, plate 145), although, as Ashby noted, there are several minor differences. In Letarouilly’s plan, the rooms to the sides of the courtyard have windows overlooking side roads, and the area to the rear is a garden. In addition, the room to the right of the entrance corridor is divided into two, the enfilade of doors in the left wing is absent, there are some discrepancies in room shapes (e.g. those of the entrance vestibule and the rooms on the righthand side beyond the main staircase), and the walls around the courtyard are articulated with pilasters. Many of these differences might be explained as internal alterations that were made subsequently, and the likelihood of this is suggested by the fact that the distribution, shape and size of the spaces in the range at the left flank of the palace corresponds closely to a plan of the piano nobile by Ottaviano Mascarino dating from the late sixteenth century. The possibility that the Coner drawing might be a copy of a project drawing was proposed by Bruschi (Bruschi 1989), in contrast to Frommel (Frommel 1973) who interpreted it as a survey of the building under construction. That the former hypothesis may be correct is suggested by the incomplete nature of the structure at the back, which may well express some degree of uncertainty, perhaps apparent in the drawing being copied, over what was being intended, especially since the confines of the building had still not been established by 1516 (Bruschi 1989, p. 12). Similar uncertainties are seen in other drawings, of both modern buildings such as San Biagio della Pagnotta (Fol. 7r/Ashby 11) and ancient monuments such as the Baths of Caracalla (Fol. 13r and flap/Ashby 22) and the Arch of Titus (Fol. 35r/Ashby 56). Strozzieri (2023) has observed that the measurements on the plan result in a building that has a broader frontage than the present structure, but whether this was the result of poor estimation of dimensions when copying a preliminary project or whether it was conceived for a slightly broader site is unclear.
The possibility that the Coner drawing was based on a previous plan then raises the question of who could have produced it. Giorgio Vasari attributed the palace’s design to Bramante (Vasari–Milanesi, 4, p. 155) and so the likelihood is that the Coner drawing copied a version of a scheme produced by Bramante himself. According to Bruschi’s careful analysis of the executed building, Bramante was directly responsible for the plan and for the very small portion of the façade up to the tops of the cellar windows (Bruschi 1969, p. 854), the rest of it being completed by another architect in a second campaign, which might well explain why the façade was not featured in the codex. A detail of a cornice included in the codex elsewhere (Fol. 67r/Ashby 115) is described as being ‘in the house’ of Cardinal Castellesi, but this does not correspond to any of the details of the structure as built and may have arrived with the antique material brought to the site in 1513 (see also Fol. 46r/Ashby 77).
Recording a palace scheme by Bramante reflects the great interest in the codex in his work, and it underlines the fact that most of the Coner drawings of modern buildings are of works of his. This drawing is among the first of modern buildings in the codex, coming soon after the plans of what is probably a villa (Fol. 6r/Ashby 10) and San Bramante’s Biagio (Fol. 7r/Ashby 11). Why it should have been privileged in the compilation is intriguing, but it could be that Bernardo della Volpaia, who lived in the Borgo nearby (Pagliara 1989b), had some special interest in the scheme and was perhaps in some way involved with it.
As with many other drawings in the codex, the plan is not executed precisely to scale but rather by eye, with the dimensions added in afterwards, those for example of the room to the right of the entrance being given as 18-by-33 braccia (proportions around 1 : 1.6) and not corresponding especially closely with what was actually drawn (proportions around 1 : 1.8).
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [‘Pseudo-Cronaca’] Florence, GDSU, 1632 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 18); [Andrea Palladio] Vicenza, Museo Civico, D 5v (Zorzi 1958, p. 104; Puppi 1989, pp. 103–04); [Sallustio Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 676 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 123; [Ottaviano Mascarino] Rome, ANSL, Fondo Mascarino, n. 2414 (Strozzieri 2023).
Literature
Ashby 1904, p. 16
Ashby 1913, p. 191
Frommel 1973, II, p. 210
Günther 1988, p. 338
Bruschi 1989, p. 12
Strozzieri 2023, pp. 370–76
Ashby 1913, p. 191
Frommel 1973, II, p. 210
Günther 1988, p. 338
Bruschi 1989, p. 12
Strozzieri 2023, pp. 370–76
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