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Drawing 2 (top right): Column base from the Temple of Mars Ultor
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Reference number
SM volume 115/124b
Purpose
Drawing 2 (top right): Column base from the Temple of Mars Ultor
Aspect
Half section with perspectival elevation from above, with measurements
Scale
To an approximate scale of 1:10
Inscribed
in. santo. Baxilio (‘In San Basilio’)
Signed and dated
- c.1513/14
Datable to c.1513/14
Medium and dimensions
Pen and dark brown ink and grey-brown wash in two tones over black chalk
Hand
Bernardo della Volpaia
Notes
This richly ornamented column base, consisting of two toruses separated by two scotias, twinned astragals in the middle and an extra astragal immediately above the lower torus, is one of a set from the interior of the Temple of Mars Ultor (Storz 1988). This temple was partly transformed during the middle ages into the church of San Basilio ai Pantani (Angelelli 1998, pp. 9 and 25 n. 1) – hence the caption specifying the base’s location as santo baxilio – which was dismantled in 1924. The bases from the temple interior were well known even in the fifteenth century when they were drawn by Giuliano da Sangallo in his Codex Barberini, and they inspired the bases he employed for the interior of Santa Maria delle Carceri in Prato (Davies 2017). They were recorded subsequently in the Codex Escurialensis and in drawings by Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo and many others, with an example even making an appearance in Raphael’s Madonna della Quercia (c.1517) in the Prado, as well as featuring in publications by Sebastiano Serlio (1540), Antonio Labacco (1552) and Andrea Palladio (1570).
A drawing in the Uffizi ascribed to Aristotile da Sangallo records an identical base in the ‘Palace of San Marco’, which abuts the church of San Marco and is now more generally known as Palazzo Venezia, and the same base was also depicted by Baldassare Peruzzi and others. Its seeming presence in two places led Ashby to conjecture that it had been moved from San Basilio to the church of San Marco. A far more likely explanation, however, is that the various drawings record two different examples, one in San Basilio and the other at Palazzo Venezia/San Marco, as is very likely given their close proximity. A seventeenth-century drawing of the same base, labelled as being in San Marco, appears later on in the codex (Fol. 76v/Ashby 130). It is possible that the base had been reused when the early medieval church of San Marco was first built, and that it could even be encased in one of the nave piers belonging to its subsequent renovation.
The base is represented in perspective from above but with a quarter of it removed on the right to show the various mouldings in profile. Showing the plinth on the left in perspective, however, which projects at the corner much further forward than the bottom torus, caused a degree of conceptual difficulty that required the corner to be redrawn more convincingly before it was finally inked in – as was also the case with the drawing below and two others on the verso. The original intention, as the black chalk underdrawing reveals, was to depict the base with a more acutely receding view of its left-hand side. The combination of view and section is not seen in any other early image of the base although a print by the ‘Master G. A. with the Caltrop’ is comparable in providing a view in close proximity with a half section and could have a related ancestry.
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 63r (Hülsen 1910, p. 66) [Anon.] El Escorial, Real Monasterio, 28-II-12 (Codex Escurialensis), fol. 51r (Egger 1905–06, pp. 128–29); [Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 1650 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 103; Frommel–Schelbert 2022, 1, p. 196); [Aristotile da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 1746 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 105; Ghisetti Giavarina 1990, pp. 72–73); [Baldassare Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 633 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 58; Wurm 1984, pl. 462); [‘Master G. A. with the Caltrop’] Oxford, Ashmolean, Larger Talman Album, fol. 20r; Serlio 1619, 3, fol. 84v; Labacco 1552, unpaginated (fol. 11); Palladio 1570, 4, p. 22
OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 76v/Ashby 130
A drawing in the Uffizi ascribed to Aristotile da Sangallo records an identical base in the ‘Palace of San Marco’, which abuts the church of San Marco and is now more generally known as Palazzo Venezia, and the same base was also depicted by Baldassare Peruzzi and others. Its seeming presence in two places led Ashby to conjecture that it had been moved from San Basilio to the church of San Marco. A far more likely explanation, however, is that the various drawings record two different examples, one in San Basilio and the other at Palazzo Venezia/San Marco, as is very likely given their close proximity. A seventeenth-century drawing of the same base, labelled as being in San Marco, appears later on in the codex (Fol. 76v/Ashby 130). It is possible that the base had been reused when the early medieval church of San Marco was first built, and that it could even be encased in one of the nave piers belonging to its subsequent renovation.
The base is represented in perspective from above but with a quarter of it removed on the right to show the various mouldings in profile. Showing the plinth on the left in perspective, however, which projects at the corner much further forward than the bottom torus, caused a degree of conceptual difficulty that required the corner to be redrawn more convincingly before it was finally inked in – as was also the case with the drawing below and two others on the verso. The original intention, as the black chalk underdrawing reveals, was to depict the base with a more acutely receding view of its left-hand side. The combination of view and section is not seen in any other early image of the base although a print by the ‘Master G. A. with the Caltrop’ is comparable in providing a view in close proximity with a half section and could have a related ancestry.
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 63r (Hülsen 1910, p. 66) [Anon.] El Escorial, Real Monasterio, 28-II-12 (Codex Escurialensis), fol. 51r (Egger 1905–06, pp. 128–29); [Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 1650 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 103; Frommel–Schelbert 2022, 1, p. 196); [Aristotile da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 1746 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 105; Ghisetti Giavarina 1990, pp. 72–73); [Baldassare Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 633 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 58; Wurm 1984, pl. 462); [‘Master G. A. with the Caltrop’] Oxford, Ashmolean, Larger Talman Album, fol. 20r; Serlio 1619, 3, fol. 84v; Labacco 1552, unpaginated (fol. 11); Palladio 1570, 4, p. 22
OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 76v/Ashby 130
Literature
Ashby 1904, pp. 61–62
Census, ID 46755
Census, ID 46755
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