Not known

• c.1515
  Datable to c.1515

Pen and brown ink over black chalk

Bernardo della Volpaia

This Corinthian-type capital, composed in three tiers, features a pair of winged animals, probably horned lions, acting as protomes and rising from two levels of acanthus foliage below. It is similar in design to the famous winged horse, or ‘Pegasus’, capitals discovered in the Temple of Mars Ultor, which were recorded by Baldassare Peruzzi and then published by Sebastiano Serlio in Book Four of his treatise (1537) as well as by Antonio Labacco (1552). Also similar is a capital recorded in a drawing in Kassel, although this has what appear to be winged bulls. The type had been of architectural interest from the late fifteenth century, providing a precedent for the capitals with winged-animal emblems of the Four Evangelists in Giuliano da Sangallo’s Madonna delle Carceri at Prato (Davies 2017). No other drawings of the capital are known. In style and format, the drawing is like others on this page but unlike many others elsewhere in the codes, which suggests it was executed at a slightly later date.

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Baldassare Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 632+633 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 58; Wurm 1984, pl. 463); [Anon.] Kassel, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Graphische Sammlung, Kassel Codex, fol. 38v (Günther 1988, p. 359 and pl. 86b); Serlio 1619, 4, fol. 185r; Labacco 1552, unpaginated (fol. 11)

Ashby 1904, p. 68
Ashby 1913, p. 209
Census, ID 46993

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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