Drawing 3 (centre left): Doric capital from the top storey of the Cortile del Belvedere’s lower terrace

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Italian Renaissance Drawings
- Codex Coner: Architecture and Antiquarianism in early sixteenth-century Rome, c.1513-15 with seventeenth-century additions (100 folios)
  - SM volume 115/122

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Reference number

SM volume 115/122c

Purpose

Drawing 3 (centre left): Doric capital from the top storey of the Cortile del Belvedere’s lower terrace

Aspect

Half a cross section and raking view of side, with measurements

Scale

To an approximate scale of 1:16

Inscribed

in. P[ulcro]. uidere. Q[uarta]. pars. (‘In the Belvedere, a quarter part [of a capital]’); [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, traces of black chalk and compass pricks

Hand

Bernardo della Volpaia

Notes

The Doric capital belongs to the minor order of top-storey columns, positioned between Corinthian pilasters of the Cortile del Belvedere (cf. Letarouilly (1963, 2–3, p. 132), and also seen in two elevational depictions in the codex (Fols 27r and 28r), and some of these columns are still preserved today (Frommel 1998, p. 54 fig. 60). In design, the capital broadly tallies with the imposts to either side on the same storey (Fol. 69r/Ashby 117 Drawing 3), but it closely follows the Doric prototype from the Theatre of Marcellus shown in Drawing 5 of this sheet (and on Fol. 45v/Ashby 76). The drawing cuts through the top of the supporting shaft and shows a dowel hole, a standard convention in the codex, even though holes are not found at this height, and cannot exist here since the columns are not formed from drums.

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 15r/Ashby 25; Fol. 27r/Ashby 43; Fol. 27v/Ashby 44; Fol. 28r/Ashby 45; Fol. 28v/Ashby 46; Fol. 46v/Ashby 78; Fol. 53v/Ashby 92; Fol. 54r/Ashby 93; Fol. 68/Ashby 116; Fol. 69r/Ashby 117

Literature

Ashby 1904, p. 61
Ackerman 1954, p. 196

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