To an approximate scale of 1:12

Secunda./ .C [orona]. S. mari [a]e./ .rotundae (‘Second cornice of Santa Maria Rotunda’); [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 drawing is a detailed rendition of the cornice and frieze (omitting the architrave) of the upper order of the Pantheon’s interior immediately beneath the dome, and, as with other cornices in the codex, it is depicted in section with a raking frontal view that shows the decoration. Both cornice and frieze are represented almost correctly, except that the ornament on the cyma reversa moulding above the frieze is missing. It is certainly more accurate than the representations of the cornice in the Fossombrone Sketchbook and Book Three of Sebastiano Serlio’s treatise (first published in 1540), both of which mistakenly show two cyma mouldings beneath the corona.

One particular feature of the entablature was the subject of much disagreement during the sixteenth century, namely the design of the architrave, perhaps because of the difficulty of discerning its form at such a height from the ground. Here only the top of it is shown, and it is depicted incorrectly as an astragal with an apophyge underneath. This curious interpretation, more commonly associated with the top of a column shaft, is also seen, aside from in the copy of this drawing by Amico Aspertini, in a depiction by Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo – which is also measured in braccia although the dimensions do not precisely concur . Most other draughtsmen show the architrave more correctly with a cyma recta above a single fascia, including the authors of the Fossombrone sketchbook and the Goldschmidt Scrapbook as well as Andrea Palladio and Giovannantonio Dosio.

Why the drawing of the Pantheon’s ground-storey entablature, which features on an earlier page (Fol. 50v/Ashby 86), does not appear next to this one is surprising especially since both are Corinthian entablatures, and since this page is dedicated exclusively to details from the Pantheon and could have been organised differently. It may be because the entablature drawn here lacks modillions and is on a page in the midst of a whole series of Corinthian cornices of this type, whereas the Pantheon’s ground storey entablature has modillions and is accordingly grouped with cornices of this other sort. Depicting the entablature here in the company of Pantheon details of very different kinds follows a practice occasionally seen elsewhere in the codex, such as on the pages showing details of the Temple of Serapis (Fol. 48r/Ashby 81) and Trajan’s Column (Fol. 76r/Ashby 129).

RELATED IMAGES: [Amico Aspertini] London, BM, Aspertini Sketchbook II, fol. 40v (Bober 1957, p. 89)

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Anon] Fossombrone, Biblioteca Civica Passionei, Dis. Vol. 3 (Fossombrone Sketchbook), fol. 14v (Nesselrath 1993, pp. 123–26); [Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 85 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 83; Frommel–Adams 2000, p. 101); Serlio 1619, 3, fol. 54v; [Anon. French draughtsman] New York, Metropolitan Museum, Goldschmidt Scrapbook, fol. 93v (D'Orgeix 2001, p. 198; Yerkes 2013, p. 119); [Andrea Palladio] London, RIBA, Palladio VI, fol. 11v (Zorzi 1959, p. 77); [Giovannantonio Dosio] Florence, GDSU, 2022 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 144; Acidini 1976, p. 113)

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 65r/Ashby 111 passim; Fol. 8r/Ashby 13; Fol. 23r/Ashby 35; 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. 50v/Ashby 86; Fol. 80r/Ashby 134; Fol. 82r/Ashby 136

Ashby 1904, p. 54
Census, ID 44722

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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