To an approximate scale of 1:8

.APVD. ARC/ EM. MILITV[M] (‘Near the soldiers’ fortress [i.e. the Torre delle Milizie]’); [measurements]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

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

Bernardo della Volpaia

This fragment is described in the caption, written in all’antica capitals, as being near the Torre delle Milizie overlooking Trajan’s Market. Other drawings recording a cornice of the same design specify other locations, although this does not necessarily mean that the caption is incorrect, since ancient fragments were often scattered or were transported to other locations in the city throughout the medieval and Renaissance periods. The annotation on one, from the circle of Antonio Labacco and dating from very soon after the Codex Coner, specifies that the cornice had been ‘recently discovered’ (trovata nuovamente) behind Trajan’s Column in 1514; and that on another, produced later on by Giovannantonio Dosio, states that it was found near Trajan’s Column where ‘the remains of a round temple’ (le vestigiie dun tempio tondo) were once seen. The presence of this fragment close to the nearby Torre delle Milizie is, therefore, not improbable.

The cornices shown in the Coner drawing and in these later depictions, as well as in others including one by ‘Pseudo-Giocondo’, are certainly identical in both composition and decoration, which includes the channelling seen very unusually on the cyma. The Coner drawing, however, differs from these others in recording a full entablature instead of the cornice alone, in giving the measurements in braccia rather than other dimensional units, and in adopting the section-plus-raking view format rather than that of a frontal view of a corner.

The drawing has many pentimenti – especially clear in the architrave – revealing that it was originally planned to show a narrower portion of the entablature. Its enlargement allowed more of the surface detailing to be represented.

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Circle of Antonio Labacco] Cambridge (Mass.), Fogg Museum, Inv. 1932.271, fol. 2r (Burns 1984, p. 413); [‘Pseudo-Giocondo’] Florence, GDSU, 2050 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 17; [Giovannantonio Dosio] Berlin, Kunstbibliothek, OZ 109 (Codex Destailleur A), fol. 1r

Ashby 1904, p. 52
Günther 1988, p. 338
Census, ID 45489

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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