Not known

• c.1515
  Datable to c.1515

Pen and brown ink over traces of black chalk and a single vertical stylus line at centre

Bernardo della Volpaia

The Corinthian capital drawn here is distinctive in having side volutes (one shown) that rise vertically, and palmettes around the bottom that are laid on top of acanthus. That it belongs to a pilaster is clear from the top of the shaft being shown. The drawing depicts just enough of the capital to include the anthemion in the middle, with the remainder of the right-hand side partly drawn and left unfinished, its completion impossible owing to the drawing’s positioning on the page.

What is very possibly the same capital appears in a drawing, from a little earlier, by the anonymous Florentine artist of the Codex Strozzi. This again mainly shows the capital’s left-hand side, but the proportions are much shorter, the palmettes alternate with acanthus leaves rather than covering them, and the depicted volute is of a much more delicate foliate design. Later drawings in Kassel and New York, which again show the left-hand portion of the capital, tend to agree with the Codex Strozzi depiction, except that they show the volute as a combination of a scroll and leaf, and thus more like the one shown in the Coner drawing. The conclusion from all this is that the various drawings were based on sources that interpreted the capital in different ways, or else were not very precise in their detailing.

The drawing follows the convention of showing a horizontal slice through the shaft, but one that is roughly drawn and gives the impression that the shaft is broken, as is the case with other drawings on this sheet and elsewhere. The cut-through section is also hatched rather than shaded in wash, a technique typical of the later phase of the codex’s production. The drawing was copied by Michelangelo in modified form.

RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] Florence, CB, 1Ar: left side (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 49; Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 92–93)

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Anon.[ Florence, GDSU, Codex Strozzi, 1597 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 27); [Anon.] Kassel, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Graphische Sammlung, Codex Kassel, fol. 38v (Günther 1988, p. 359 and pl. 86b); [Anon. French Draughtsman] New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Goldschmidt Scrapbook, no. 68 (D'Orgeix 2001, p. 197)

Ashby 1904, p. 69
Census, ID 46982

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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