To an approximate scale of 1:10

Circa. s. maria [m]. novam. [‘Near to Santa Maria Nuova’); [measurements]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

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

Bernardo della Volpaia

The cornice is known only from this drawing and its copy by Michelangelo. Since it was seen, as the caption indicates, near the church of Santa Maria Nuova (later known as Santa Francesca Romana), it may have come from Hadrian’s Temple of Venus and Rome (begun 121 CE), given that the church partly occupies the temple’s site. Also pointing to such a possibility is the unusual design feature of replacing the customary dentils with an unadorned plain band, a feature also seen in the various cornices of the Pantheon which was erected at around the same date and associated with the same patron. Two of the Pantheon’s cornices with this band are drawn on what was originally the adjacent page of the compilation (now Fol. 65r/Ashby 111). Intriguingly, the band here was initially drawn as a row of dentils before the mistake was realised and corrected.

The cornice in also distinctive in having two rows of egg-and-dart, a combination it shares with the one drawn at the top of the page [Drawing 1], which was also seen at Santa Maria Nuova, suggesting that both could have come from the same structure. The drawing was copied in simplified form by Michelangelo.

RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] Florence, CB, 3Av: right side (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 50; Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 114–15)

Ashby 1904, p. 54
Census, ID 45490

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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