Not known

• c.1515
  Datable to c.1515

Pen and brown ink over traces of black chalk

Bernardo della Volpaia

This Corinthian-type capital has acanthus at the bottom and then tall volutes overlaid with garlands suspended from the abacus’s central florets. Ashby was of the view that it was a modern invention, citing its similarity with capitals from the now-destroyed tomb in the church of San Francesco in Siena of the father of Pope Pius II. It is, however, ancient and belongs to a pair of columns made of giallo antico marble that are still in the Lateran Baptistery, although they were then located in the contiguous vestibule (Forni 1991, pp. 23–24) leading into the now-demolished Oratory of the Holy Cross (on which see Johnson 1995). The same capital is drawn in Giuliano da Sangallo’s Codex Barberini, which notes it as being in the Lateran Baptistery, and it is also the subject of several later drawings, including a pair by Alberto Alberti that specify their precise original location in a ‘portico’ fronting the baptistery’s entrance.

In depicting half of the capital and the upper part of the shaft, like three others on this sheet, the drawing differs from the more elaborate renditions of capitals in the codex that were executed a little earlier.

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 14v (Hülsen 1910, p. 25; Borsi 1985, p. 102); [Alberto Alberti] Rome, ICG, Vol. 2501, fol. 7v and Vol. 2502, fol. 58v (Forni 1991, pp. 23–24 and p. 139)

Ashby 1904, pp. 68–69
Census, ID 47005

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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