To an approximate scale of 1:8

in. S. maria. maiore. (‘In Santa Maria Maggiore’); [measurements]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over stylus lines, traces of black chalk and compass pricks

Bernardo della Volpaia

This unusual and richly decorated Doric capital has a very tall double-tier neck, or calathos, ornamented with foliage, an echinus adorned with egg-and-dart and an abacus with florets at the corners of the soffit. It is no longer to be found in Santa Maria Maggiore, which is where the caption states it was. Ashby connected it with the now-demolished Altar of All Saints (otherwise known as the Capocci Tabernacle; for which see Gardner 1970), but early representations of this altar (e.g. De Angelis 1621, p. 87) shows the capital in such a rudimentary way that the identification cannot be confirmed. The capital was previously depicted in a comparable drawing by Giuliano da Sangallo in his Codex Barberini, but without specifying its location. Attention has also been drawn to a similar capital later recorded by Giovanni Battista Piranesi as being in Rome’s Villa Strozzi (Hülsen 1910, p. 21).

The capital has been intentionally grouped on the page with others that share the same characteristics. It resembles all the others on the page in being sheathed in surface decoration, three others in having echinuses with egg-and-dart, three in having florets on the undersides of the abacuses, and two in having double-tier necks. The drawing is unlike those on its right, and also those on the verso (originally the recto), in being a frontal view rather than a cross section through the capital combined with a raking view, and, like the one below, it may have been added to the sheet at a slightly later date. It was copied in adjusted form by Michelangelo.

RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] London, BM, 1859-6-25-560/1v (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, pp. 47–48; Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 94–95)

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 11r (Hülsen 1910, p. 21; Borsi 1985, pp. 88–91)

Ashby 1904, p. 59
Census, ID 47063

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