To an approximate scale of 1:23

[Measurements]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over black chalk and stylus lines

Bernardo della Volpaia

This drawing, from around 1515, of half a base is attached at its left to one of half another base of different design, the two forming a composite image of rather old-fashioned format (for which see Fol. 77r/Ashby 131). It matches with its partner in having various constituent mouldings of similar relative size aligned but differs from it in carrying dimensions. The base has a complex and highly unorthodox profile, which begins with a plain plinth and then ascends from a torus ornamented with scrolling foliage, via a cyma with drooping leaves and an astragal with bead-and-reel, to a plain scotia with a fringe of hanging tongue-like features, a cyma reversa with Lesbian ornament, another astragal with beads and finally an ovolo with horizontally arranged laurel leaves.

An elevational drawing in the Uffizi by an anonymous draughtsman from a little later establishes that the base was to be found at Santa Croce (perhaps now encased in the piers forming part of the eighteenth-century renovation). It is also recorded in a drawing by Baldassare Peruzzi and in the Fossombrone sketchbook. A drawing on a sheet now at Holkham Hall and dating from around the turn of the sixteenth century (also bearing a depiction of the Lateran Baptistery base recorded in Drawing 1) shows the right-hand half of a very similar base that is represented in much the same way, which is probably the same base despite certain differences of detail, such as the moulding above the lower cyma being depicted as straight rather than as a scotia. Two later elevational drawings of notable precision by Giovannantonio Dosio and Alberto Alberti confirm the Coner composition and again specify that the base was to be seen at Santa Croce, although both add that an identical base was known to exist above a sewer (chiavica) at the ‘customs office’ (dogana). An elaborate base from Santa Croce drawn on Fol. 73v/Ashby 125 has a profile that is notably similar, especially in the idiosyncrasy of the scotia having a hanging fringe, and even though the upper mouldings and surface embellishments differ slightly, this may have originated from the same ancient building. The drawing was copied by Michelangelo and Francesco Borromini.

RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] Florence, CB, 1Ar: right side (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 49; Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 86–87); [Francesco Borromini] Vienna, Albertina, It. AZ (fol. 180; G XI, i): inv. Thelen 5 (Thelen 1967, 1, pp. 12–13)

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Anon.] Holkham Hall, Ms 701, fol. 5r; [Anon.] Florence, GDSU, 5 Av (Günther 1982, p. 101); [Anon] Fossombrome, Bibl. Civica Passionei, inv. Disegni Vol. 3, fol. 5v (Nesselrath 1993, pp. 89–91); [Baldassare Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 550 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 45; Wurm 1984, pl. 435); [Giovannantonio Dosio] Florence, GDSU, 2010 Ar (Schreiter 2003, pp. 50–51); [Alberto Alberti] Rome, ICG, Vol. 2502, fol. 12r (Forni 1991, p. 105)

Ashby 1904, p. 65
Ashby 1913, p. 209
Census, ID 51915

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