Drawing 5 (bottom left): Doric capital from the Theatre of Marcellus’s bottom storey

Explore Collections

You are here: CollectionsOnline / Drawing 5 (bottom left): Doric capital from the Theatre of Marcellus’s bottom storey

Browse

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

Use of images and copyright
Enlarge this Image

Print this image in A4 view

Reference number

SM volume 115/122e

Purpose

Drawing 5 (bottom left): Doric capital from the Theatre of Marcellus’s bottom storey

Aspect

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

Scale

To an approximate scale of 1:6

Inscribed

Porticalis. anphiteatri. Sauello[rum] (‘Portico of the amphitheatre of the Savelli’); [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 capital is from the lower storey of the Theatre of Marcellus, as established by the caption referring to the Savelli family who had turned the structure (here described incorrectly as an ‘amphitheatre’) into a palace. It is one of the most frequently depicted of all ancient Doric capitals, appearing in the Codex Coner twice, this time in section and earlier (Fol. 45v/Ashby 76) where it is shown with the entablature in a combination of a section and a raking view. Like several others on this sheet, the drawing has perspectival indications of the undersides of overhanging mouldings, but these are here very minimal, and provides very little indication of the capital’s external appearance. Intriguingly, it provides measurements that differ significantly from those on the previous drawing, which is explained if it was based on a different prototype.

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 26v/Ashby 42; Fol. 45v/Ashby 76; Fol. 54r/Ashby 93; Fol. 67r/Ashby 115

Literature

Ashby 1904, p. 61
Census, ID 45003

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