To an approximate scale of 1:230

[Drawing] .S. mari[a]e. rotund[a]e. (‘Of the church of Santa Maria Rotunda’); [numerous measurements]; 32 [early seventeenth-century hand] [Mount] 35 [x2]; ‘The Pantheon at Rome’ [in pencil]

• 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 (232x167mm), 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] Anchor in circle topped with six-pointed star (variant 4; cut at left edge) [Mount] Fleur-de-lys in circle surmounted with crown (variant 2; cut by bottom edge of window)

This first elevational drawing in the codex of the Pantheon is also the first of four covering its rotunda, and it is a transverse section showing just over half the interior in order to include the whole of the apse on the main axis and the full width of the oculus in the dome. It highlights the correspondence between the main apse and the apsidal exedra on the transverse axis shown in section to the left, which (like the one facing it) has its upper reaches screened from view by the upper storey, although it records only one of its three internal niches. At ground level it also shows one of the rectangular exedrae on the diagonal axes, and two of the eight tabernacles that ring the interior, which are recorded in more detail further on in the codex (Fol. 39r/Ashby 63). At the upper level it shows the window openings with their frames and cornices, but not the pilasters and the marble revetment of the wall in between. Why all this was left out in unclear, but it may be because the upper-storey revetment was considered to be an addition to the design as it was originally conceived, with Michelangelo believing that the external portico was another later addition (see Cat. Fol. 40r/Ashby 65 Drawing 1), and that the building was the work of three separate architects, one responsible for the interior upper storey, who were operating at three different times (Vasari–Milanesi 1878--85, 4, pp. 511–12). The omission certainly prevented the drawing from becoming too cluttered. In the dome above, the five superimposed rings of coffers are all represented, and what is shown covers exactly a quarter of their number to indicate correctly that they number twenty-eight in each complete ring. The exterior wall, shown in section, has the heights of the three external storeys all recorded, while, above, the steps at the base of the dome also have their dimensions specified. Missing from the drawing is the rectangular columnar screen that stood in front of the main apse and the ciborium inside it that were both erected during the pontificate of Innocent VIII in 1491 and are recorded in a plan by Hermann Vischer and an elevation in Milan (Nesselrath 2015b), which were presumably eliminated, as was normal practice in the Coner compilation, because they were not part of the original design, as were other features of the surviving building (see Cat. Fol. 8r/Ashby 13). The tabernacles are shown with pedestals beneath the individual columns, rather than continuous plinths, and thus in the state they were in before they were altered shortly afterwards (see Cat. Fol. 39r/Ashby 63 Drawing 1).

The interior view of the building is drawn in perspective, such that the curvature at each internal level varies, being the most exaggerated at the bottom, and gradually diminishing to a point halfway up the dome, when it becomes inverted. The curving lines were presumably all drawn by eye – a tour de force of intuitive rendition – which is unlike the procedure followed for the second sectional depiction of the building on the next page, where the curving lines for every horizontal division of the drum are identical, as they would be in an axonometric drawing (see Cat. Fol. 23v/Ashby 36 for further discussion). The very high viewpoint and the expansive view of the interior were presumably dictated by a wish to convey the shape of the plan, and provide a sense of the design’s totality, ideal for viewers unpractised in reading architectural drawings.

The drawing’s label, identifying the building as ‘the church of Santa Maria Rotunda’ is clarified by a nineteenth-century annotation on the mount naming it as the ‘The Pantheon in Rome’.

OTHER DRAWINGS MENTIONED: [Hermann Vischer] Paris, Louvre, inv. 19051v; [Anon.] Milan, Civico Gabinetto dei Disegni, Raccolta Martinelli, V, fol. 99r

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 8r/Ashby 13; Fol. 23v/Ashby 36; Fol. 24r/Ashby 37; Fol. 24v/Ashby 38; Fol. 38r/Ashby 61; Fol. 38v/Ashby 62; Fol. 39r/Ashby 63; Fol. 40r/Ashby 65; Fol. 50v/Ashby 86; Fol. 65r/Ashby 111; Fol. 81r/Ashby 134; Fol. 83r/Ashby 136

Ashby 1904, p. 29
Census, ID 46697

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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