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Drawing 1: Richly embellished cornice once in Santi Quattro Coronati
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Reference number
SM volume 115/104a
Purpose
Drawing 1: Richly embellished cornice once in Santi Quattro Coronati
Aspect
Perspectival elevation of a corner
Scale
Not known
Inscribed
In Sti 4 (‘In Santi Quattro [Coronati]’); 16 [in graphite]
Signed and dated
- 1625/35
Date range: 1625/35
Medium and dimensions
Pen and brown ink and brown wash
Hand
Seventeenth-Century Hand 1 (Codex Ursinianus Copyist)
Notes
The fragment of a cornice drawn in this addition to the codex from the seventeenth century is no longer to be found in Santi Quattro Coronati but is the subject of other early depictions. A mid- sixteenth-century drawing in Berlin, giving the same location, is almost identical except that a slightly shorter length is depicted, and there are minor differences in decoration, while another from around the same time in Saint Petersburg is very similar, although the amount shown is again rather less, the viewpoint is slightly adjusted and the Greek key ornamentation on the corona is more elaborate. The meandering pattern on the crowning cyma in rather less well understood in the Berlin and Saint Petersburg drawings where the decoration looks rather like a series of dropped balusters, but all three drawings are probably based on a common, now lost prototype.
A very similar fragment of a cornice was discovered in the nineteenth century in the Roman Forum (Toebelmann 1923, pp. 13–15; Mattern 2001, pp. 141–43; Pensabene 2015, pp. 471–72), and is now conserved in the Forum’s Antiquarium. This fragment, which corresponds most closely with the Saint Petersburg drawing, is thought to have belonged to the Arch of Augustus, a three-bay Doric structure located between the Temple of Julius Caesar and the Temple of Castor and Pollux. The presumption, therefore, is that the Santi Quattro Coronati fragment was removed from this site at some point in the Middle Ages, perhaps under Pope Leo IV (reg. 847–55) when the church was rebuilt and enlarged (Campbell 2004, 2, p. 630).
Like other seventeenth-century drawings added to the codex, this one is numbered in graphite.
RELATED IMAGES: [Anon.] Berlin, Kunstbibliothek, inv. OZ 114, fol. 24 (Römische Skizzen 1988, p. 155)
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Anon.] Saint Petersburg, Hermitage, Codex Destailleur B, fol. 24v (Lanzarini–Martinis 2015, pp. 101–02)
A very similar fragment of a cornice was discovered in the nineteenth century in the Roman Forum (Toebelmann 1923, pp. 13–15; Mattern 2001, pp. 141–43; Pensabene 2015, pp. 471–72), and is now conserved in the Forum’s Antiquarium. This fragment, which corresponds most closely with the Saint Petersburg drawing, is thought to have belonged to the Arch of Augustus, a three-bay Doric structure located between the Temple of Julius Caesar and the Temple of Castor and Pollux. The presumption, therefore, is that the Santi Quattro Coronati fragment was removed from this site at some point in the Middle Ages, perhaps under Pope Leo IV (reg. 847–55) when the church was rebuilt and enlarged (Campbell 2004, 2, p. 630).
Like other seventeenth-century drawings added to the codex, this one is numbered in graphite.
RELATED IMAGES: [Anon.] Berlin, Kunstbibliothek, inv. OZ 114, fol. 24 (Römische Skizzen 1988, p. 155)
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Anon.] Saint Petersburg, Hermitage, Codex Destailleur B, fol. 24v (Lanzarini–Martinis 2015, pp. 101–02)
Literature
Ashby 1904, p. 51
Campbell 2004, 2, pp. 630–31
Census, ID 45477
Campbell 2004, 2, pp. 630–31
Census, ID 45477
Level
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.
If you have any further information about this object, please contact us: drawings@soane.org.uk