To an approximate scale of 1:150

[letter key] .D.; [measurements]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

Pen and brown ink and grey-brown and brown wash over stylus lines

Bernardo della Volpaia

As the key letter ‘D’ makes clear, this plan-detail relates to the side-loggias of the Cortile’s lower terrace, but it shows the space between the piers and the wall behind as compressed to allow the drawing to fit on the sheet. A similar abbreviation is seen in the representations of the column or pilaster shafts of Bramante’s Tegurio (Fol. 47r/Ashby 79) and the Mausoleum of Hadrian (Fol. 56v/Ashby 96). That the compression here is a draughting convention and not an error is indicated by the given measurements, which mostly correspond with those specified on the two elevational drawings of the lower terrace in the codex: the width of the arched opening is again given as 10 braccia on the orthogonal elevation (Fol. 28r/Ashby 45), and the distance between the pier and the back wall is similarly put at 10 braccia on the perspectival elevation (Fol. 27r/Ashby 43). The number ‘10’ (i.e. 10 braccia) written in the small gap between the pier and the back wall (bottom left) indicates a distance of 10 braccia despite the space being contracted.

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: see Drawing 1

Ashby 1904, pp. 23–26
Ashby 1913, pp. 197–200
Ackerman 1954, pp. 193–95

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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