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Drawing 2 (right): Doric capital and entablature from the Colosseum’s ground storey
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Reference number
SM volume 115/114b
Purpose
Drawing 2 (right): Doric capital and entablature from the Colosseum’s ground storey
Aspect
Cross section and axonometric raking view of front, with measurements
Scale
To an approximate scale of 1:12
Inscribed
[Measurements]
Signed and dated
- c.1513/14
Datable to c.1513/14
Medium and dimensions
Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over stylus lines and compass pricks
Hand
Bernardo della Volpaia
Notes
This unlabelled drawing is an unusually detailed record of the highly uncanonical Doric order of the Colosseum’s ground storey. In design, the entablature is more akin, with its three-fascia architrave, its lack of triglyphs and metopes, and its ovolo mouldings and intervening plain band, to one belonging to a Corinthian order, while the capital departs from the norm by having an additional cyma reversa beneath the echinus. It was perhaps partly for this reason that the two were not featured in the sequence of Doric capitals and entablatures earlier in the codex, although it follows the same format when representing the Doric order of combining capital and entablature, which is unlike the Coner practice for depicting Corinthian entablatures, where the capitals are omitted. The capital and entablature were also drawn, in simple elevational format, in the Codex Strozzi, and on a sheet of studies attributed to Antonio da Sangallo the Elder.
Setting out the drawing would appear to have caused some difficulty. The capital was considerably amended before the position of the entablature’s profile was established, while the upper levels of the cornice were ultimately truncated at a line corresponding with the edge of the neighbouring drawing. The capital was much imitated especially in the fifteenth century, being closely copied, for example, in the courtyard of Rome’s Palazzo Venezia (1460s).
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Anon.] Florence, GDSU, Codex Strozzi, 1603 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 27); [Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, attr.] Florence, GDSU, 2043 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, pp. 30–31)
OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 2r/Ashby 2; Fol. 2v/Ashby 3; Fol. 3r/Ashby 4; Fol. 3v/Ashby 5; Fol. 25 and flap recto/Ashby 39; Fol. 25 verso of flap/Ashby 39a; Fol. 25v/Ashby 40; Fol. 26r/Ashby 41; Fol. 66r/Ashby 113; Fol. 66v/Ashby 114 (Drawing 1 on this page); Fol. 83v/Ashby 137)
Setting out the drawing would appear to have caused some difficulty. The capital was considerably amended before the position of the entablature’s profile was established, while the upper levels of the cornice were ultimately truncated at a line corresponding with the edge of the neighbouring drawing. The capital was much imitated especially in the fifteenth century, being closely copied, for example, in the courtyard of Rome’s Palazzo Venezia (1460s).
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Anon.] Florence, GDSU, Codex Strozzi, 1603 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 27); [Antonio da Sangallo the Elder, attr.] Florence, GDSU, 2043 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, pp. 30–31)
OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 2r/Ashby 2; Fol. 2v/Ashby 3; Fol. 3r/Ashby 4; Fol. 3v/Ashby 5; Fol. 25 and flap recto/Ashby 39; Fol. 25 verso of flap/Ashby 39a; Fol. 25v/Ashby 40; Fol. 26r/Ashby 41; Fol. 66r/Ashby 113; Fol. 66v/Ashby 114 (Drawing 1 on this page); Fol. 83v/Ashby 137)
Literature
Ashby 1904, p. 55
Günther 1988, p. 337
Census, ID 45745
Günther 1988, p. 337
Census, ID 45745
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