To an approximate scale of 1:240

[Drawing] T[enplum]. Paneonis. (‘Temple of the Pantheon’)
[Mount] 38 [x2]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

[Drawing] Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over stylus lines; on laid paper (232x160mm), rounded corners at top, inlaid (sheet rotated anticlockwise through 90 degrees)
[Mount] Frame lines, in pen and dark brown ink, 10mm apart; window (153x226mm)

Bernardo della Volpaia

See recto

This longitudinal section through the Pantheon (misspelt in the caption) is the earliest such depiction of the building to survive and it covers the intermediate block behind the portico and the front half of the building’s domed rotunda but omits the portico at the building’s front. It records the five levels of the dome’s internal coffers complete with their perspectival adjustments and the steps on the dome’s extrados, and it also shows, fairly correctly, the internal room above the entrance (cf. Desgodetz 1682, pp. 22–23), which was completely omitted in Andrea Palladio’s later published illustration, although the internal door is positioned more centrally than in reality, a mistake also seen in drawings by Baldassare Peruzzi and Giovannantonio Dosio. However, although it depicts the barrel-vaulted entrance inside the rotunda, it does not show the entrance passageway under the portico with its pilaster articulation, panel work and vaulting (partly depicted on Fol. 38v/Ashby 62). One possible explanation for this is that the drawing was unfinished, perhaps because the perspectival rendition of the barrel-vaulted entrance had already presented problems and a corresponding treatment of the frontal passageway was regarded as conceptually too difficult to achieve with clarity. Another is that the omission may have been intentional, to focus attention on the rotunda entrance, the only part of the drawing to be given measurements, although this does not include the octagonal coffering then still visible on the vault and recorded in other images such as in Palladio’s Quattro libri (Yerkes 2014).

An especially interesting feature of the Coner drawing concerns the rotunda floor. Originally represented as a flat line, this then had four little diagonal dashes drawn through it, to signify it being cancelled. It was then replaced by a new line that shows the floor initially rising towards the centre but then dipping again under the oculus towards the drawing’s right edge, to indicate a dishing in this area. No other Renaissance drawing known to us shows this feature, but it accords with reality, and makes a great deal of sense as it enables rainwater descending from the oculus to be collected and taken away in drains.

The drawing, as noted above, is treated almost entirely as an orthogonal projection, except for the barrel vault over the entrance into the rotunda, which is shown in perspective projecting forwards and a little to the right. A similar representational technique is seen elsewhere in the codex, in for example the sectional drawings of the Colosseum on the pages immediately following (Fols 25r and flap/Ashby 39, 25 verso of flap/Ashby 39A, and 25v/Ashby 40), although the cut-through vault is depicted here as if ruined.

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Baldassare Peruzzi] Ferrara, Biblioteca Comunale Ariostea, Ms. I 217, busta 4, no. 8r (Burns 1965/66; Wurm 1984, pl. 473); [Giovannantonio Dosio] Florence, GDSU, 2023 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 143); Palladio 1570, 4, p. 79.

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 8r/Ashby 13; Fol. 23r/Ashby 35; Fol. 23v/Ashby 36; Fol. 24r/Ashby 37; Fol. 24v/Ashby 38; Fol. 38v/Ashby 62; Fol. 39r/Ashby 63; Fol. 40r/Ashby 65; Fol. 50v/Ashby 86; Fol. 65r/Ashby 111

Ashby 1904, p. 30
Census, ID 46699

Group

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