To an approximate scale of 1:13

reperta. iusta. Savellos (‘Discovered near [the house of] the Savelli’); b. 3. et. minuta sunt. 371/1 (‘3 braccia and 37½ minutes’); [measurements]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

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

Bernardo della Volpaia

This richly ornamented column base has two toruses and two scotias as well as a pair and two single astragals is depicted here in conjunction with the bottom of a shaft that has flutes of alternating width. It is described in the caption as having been discovered near the palace of the Savelli family, a former name for the Theatre of Marcellus, and it comes from the nearby Temple of Apollo Sosianus (La Rocca 1985, pp. 14–20), where on-site fragments are still to be seen (ibid., pp. 85–86). Other drawings include one produced previously by Giuliano da Sangallo in the Codex Barberini, this in the form of a section although also showing the bottom part of the unusual shaft. A section produced later on by Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo also shows the shaft and notes that the flutes are of alternating size. Later, the same base, along with the shaft, was recorded in an engraving by Antonio Labacco (cf. Cat. Fol. 91r/Ashby 151 Drawing 1). The Coner drawing was copied by Michelangelo in modified form to show the profile combined with a partial view of the front.

The drawing depicts its subject in perspective from above, and shows a slice through the bottom of the shaft to reveal a dowel hole at the centre. Dowel holes are not normally positioned so near the bottoms of shafts, but in this case one was most probably in this level, because the lower part of shaft was formed from the same piece of stone as the base, as surviving fragments confirm. Like the depiction above it, the drawing represents the base with a quarter of it removed so as to reveal the profile of the various mouldings, but this entailed a problem on the left, also seen in the drawing above it, in the perspectival handling of the plinth, which resulted in it being redrawn before it was inked in. The drawing was presumably paired on the sheet with the one above it because of their similarities in profile and ornamentation, especially in having twinned astragals with plaited decoration between the scotias.

RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] Florence, CB, 1Ar: right side (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 49; Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 86–87)

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 71v (Hülsen 1910, p. 75; BorsI 1985, pp. 144–46); [Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 1804 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 102; Frommel–Schelbert 2022, 1, pp. 206–07); Labacco 1552, unpaginated (fol. 32)

Ashby 1904, pp. 62–63
Census, ID 45629

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.

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