To an approximate scale of 1:525

T[EMPLVM]. S. GILIAE. APUD. [...] (‘Temple of “Santa Gilia” near [...]’)

• 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 centralised building was correctly identified by Ashby as the great thermal hall near Cuma, which – at around 35m (60 braccia) in diameter – was the largest of all ancient domed structures after the Pantheon. It was known from the nineteenth century on as the Temple of Apollo, but in the Renaissance as the Temple of the Cumaean Sybil. It is identified as such in an inscription on a drawing by Giuliano da Sangallo in the Codex Barberini, and while a Uffizi drawing from Sangallo’s circle calls it I[L] TENPIO PRESSO ABAIA DISIBILLA (‘the Temple near Baia of the Sybil’). Ashby surmised that the curious caption on the Coner plan (in antique-inspired capitals) that names it as ‘the temple of Santa Gilia’ was probably the result of misreading the word Sibilla (‘Sibyl’), and that the final word apud (‘at’), which specifies no location afterwards, indicated an intention to identify the building’s whereabouts, as is normally the case with Coner drawings, but one that remained unfulfilled, perhaps because the drawing being copied lacked the necessary information.

The ruined and partly buried thermal hall dates back to the Augustan period (27 BCE to 14 CE; Pagano and Rougetet 1988–89, p. 197) and was part of a much more extensive complex than is indicated in the Coner plan (Pagano and Rougetet 1988–89, p. 159, figs 9a&b). The rotunda, moreover, was rather different and less orderly in reality than as shown in the Coner drawing. It had a circular domed interior with a perimeter of alternating semi-circular and rectangular exedrae and perhaps low-level recesses between them, no longer visible but recorded by Francesco di Giorgio when he visited the site c.1500; and this was then encased within a partly facetted but irregular exterior that had various accretions. In the Coner plan, however, the interior is regularised and arranged with eight equally spaced exedrae: two rectangular ones on the main axis and six semi-circular ones at the sides. It also has eight niches inserted between the exedrae which are set out in an unusual pattern. To the left, on entering, are two rectilinear niches followed by two curved ones, whereas to the right the pattern is reversed. The circular interior is then set within an octagonal exterior of regular shape, which has eight triangular cavities in the wall thickness, and it is connected to matching side extensions but with no other additions.

The Coner plan differs markedly from the earlier drawing by Francesco di Giorgio – a product of a visit to the site. It accords broadly, however, with the one on parchment from Giuliano da Sangallo’s circle in the Uffizi, as well as with the version included in Sangallo’s Codex Barberini (and a later version in the Codex Escurialensis). Like these, it shows the rotunda flanked by side ranges, but it is closest to the Uffizi drawing in that the initial rooms of the side ranges are of narrower proportions. Several early drawings agree that the structure was very large, but they differ in the dimensions they provide. The Coner plan specifies an interior diameter of 60 braccia (35m) close to the 36.5 metres of the actual interior; the Uffizi drawing from Sangallo’s circle provides a scale, from which an internal diameter of 58 braccia (34m) can be inferred; and that of Francesco di Giorgio gives a dimension of 104 piedi (31m). The Coner plan also departs in certain details from the others, which all have wall cavities that are pentagonal rather than triangular in shape and show the entrance exedra without jambs on its sides. This further tidying of the layout, however, was not necessarily the aim of the draughtsman, since the Coner plan may have been copied from an earlier drawing that had been similarly neatened.

The reason for the inclusion of a building near Naples in a collection of drawing of antiquities closely connected with the city of Rome and its environs remains unresolved. For drawings of other Italian antiquities south of Rome, all perhaps deriving from the same set of lost originals, see Drawing 1 and Fol. 12v/Ashby 21.

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, 329 Ar (Vasori 1981, pp. 18–19; Burns 1993, pp. 342–43); [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 8v (Hülsen 1910, 1, p. 16; Borsi 1985, pp. 78–80); [Anon.] El Escorial, Real Monasterio, 28-II-12 (Codex Escurialensis), fol. 74r (Egger 1905–06, pp. 161–62)

Ashby 1904, p. 20
Ashby 1913, p. 193
Census, ID 46780

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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