To an approximate scale of 1:220

.T[EMPLUM]. MARCI. VAR/ RONIS. IN. S. GERMA/ .NO. (‘Temple of Marcus Varro at San Germano’)

• 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

The caption (in imitation-antique capitals) states that this building once belonged to Marcus Terentius Varro, the celebrated ancient scholar and author, and identifies its location as being in San Germano, the town now known as Cassino just beyond the midpoint from Rome to Naples. The letter ‘T’ at the beginning of the annotation must be an abbreviation of Templum, as also found on a Coner drawing of the Pantheon (Fol. 24v/Ashby 38), and this designation as a temple departs from the dominant opinion of the time. Most antiquarians and architects, before and after, regarded the building as Varro’s ‘study’ (or possibly museion), as is indicated in a drawing in Giuliano da Sangallo’s Codex Barberini which has a caption that reads ISTVDIO DIMARCHO VARONE A SA[N] GERMANO (‘Study of Marcus Varro at San Germano’). This latter view accorded with the influence it had on the designs of Renaissance buildings associated with intellectual pastimes or entertainment (Keller 1971; Cellauro 2015), such as the ‘Odeo’ built in the garden of Alvise Cornaro’s house in Padua (1534), and Andrea Palladio’s Villa Rotunda outside Vicenza (c.1565). Regarding the structure as a temple, however, is consistent with the widespread belief at the time that ancient Roman temples, like the prominent hall of this complex, were predominantly centrally planned – although the ‘T’ could of course be just a slip of the pen. All such Renaissance speculations, however, were proved incorrect when modern studies concluded that the structure was the caldarium of a Roman bath complex (Carettoni 1940, pp. 99–103).

As drawn here, the structure externally has the shape of a Greek cross, with a square central core and four slightly narrower arms. Inside, the central area is circular and each of the arms is made up of three spaces, the entrance arm being distinguished from the others in having its three internal spaces all open to the front and not interconnecting, and the central space – the entrance – being marked by two inset columns. The structure differs markedly from what is now known of the building (see Carettoni 1940, plate 10b), which is documented to a reasonable degree of accuracy in only one surviving Renaissance drawing, executed around 1500 by Francesco di Giorgio. This records the hall as externally octagonal, not square, and as belonging to a much larger complex, although it also shows a three-room annex attached to one of the hall’s sides, confirming that such an adjunct was indeed once detectable on site (see Carettoni 1940, plate 10b), and suggesting that it may have provided a basis for the dominant Renaissance understanding of the building with four such additions, as seen in the Coner drawing and many others.

The Coner plan is close to an earlier drawing in the Codex Barberini by Giuliano da Sangallo and to another on a parchment sheet in the Uffizi from Sangallo’s circle. Both have an entrance vestibule located in one of the arms that is flanked by blind spaces, although the Uffizi depiction is rather closer to the Coner drawing in showing the façade of the entrance arm with a more developed articulation – and in being paired, like the Coner drawing, with a plan of the so-called Temple of Apollo at Baia. There are differences, however, that make it unlikely that this drawing was a direct prototype. Chief among these is that the Coner plan depicts the hall as circular rather than octagonal, making it unique among surviving Renaissance representations of the complex, although this could of course be just a simple mistake – or perhaps even conceived as an ‘improvement’. Others are that, unlike the Uffizi drawing, it shows the square exterior of the core with corners that protrude instead of being sliced off, and the entrance as being marked out with columns, which collectively suggests a different and now-lost source. Drawings of the structure in the Codex Escurialensis and the subsequent Lille Sketchbook belong to a divergent tradition in showing entrances in all four arms, while three much later drawings at Windsor all depict the octagonal hall as having just one entrance but also a deep apsidal space projecting from the opposite side.

The drawing is one of three in the Codex Coner that depict ancient buildings in southern Italy (see Drawing 2 and Fol. 12v/Ashby 21), all of which are also represented on the Uffizi sheet but may derive from the same set of lost originals. It is unclear why these buildings were included in a compilation that is otherwise restricted in coverage to Rome and its immediate environs.

RELATED IMAGES: [Circle of Giuliano da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 2045 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 31; Frommel–Schelbert 2022, p. 213)

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Francesco di Giorgio] Florence, GDSU, Taccuino del Viaggio, 322 Av (Vasori 1981, p. 13; Burns 1993, pp. 336–37); [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 8r (Hülsen 1910, 1, p. 13; Borsi 1985, pp. 71–75); [Anon.] El Escorial, Real Monasterio, 28-II-12 (Codex Escurialensis), fol. 72r (Egger 1905–06, p. 160); [Raffaello da Montelupo, attr.] Lille, Musée des Beaux Arts, Lille Sketchbook, fol. 32r/no. 837 (Lemerle, p. 300); [Anon.] Windsor, RL, 10836r (Campbell 2004, 1, p. 167); [Anon.] Windsor, RL, 10837r (Campbell 2004, 1, p. 148); [Anon.] Windsor, RL 19284r (Campbell 2004, 1, p. 149)

Ashby 1904, pp. 19–20
Ashby 1913, p. 193
Census, ID 44086

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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