Not known

Asanto apostalo (‘At Santi Apostoli’)

• c.1515
  Datable to c.1515

Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over traces of black chalk and single vertical stylus line at centre

Bernardo della Volpaia

Depicted on top of a spirally fluted shaft, this Corinthian-type capital has acanthus and palmettes on the bell, and an echinus above in the form of a wreath, with rams’ heads at the corners supporting an abacus that has a mask at the centre. It is one of several antique examples with rams’ head corners, and it closely resemble a pair of damaged specimens with wreaths and rams’ heads now in the British Museum which, although lacking much of the bell, has fluttering ribbons there of the kind seen in the drawing (see Von Mercklin 1962, p. 205, fig. 954). These are of unrecorded provenance (Pryce–Smith 1892–1928, 3, p. 421) but could conceivably belong to the same set as the capital documented in the Coner drawing. As the caption records, it was once in the church of Santi Apostoli, which was largely reconstructed following a fire in 1702 (Finocchi Ghersi 2011, pp. 32–52). A capital of the same type is recorded in several other early drawings, including one by Perino del Vaga (giving the Santi Apostoli location) and another now in Kassel, and one is depicted subsequently in a drawing attributed to Alberto Alberti, which again specifies the location, and again shows the spirally fluted shaft as well as the base which was of the ‘Pantheon’ type. Several spirally fluted ancient columns still exist in the church in the Cappella del Crocifisso to the left of the high altar, which was reconstructed from 1708 using spolia (Finocchi Ghersi 2011, p. 85) but adorned with modern capitals.

The drawing is aligned with the one above it, and a similar proportion of the capital, made roughly the same size, is shown, and this perhaps suggests that both were copied from the same source. The caption was written hurriedly, but the handwriting is broadly consistent with that in other annotations, and so is that of Bernardo della Volpaia even though the drawing dates from the second phase of the codex’s execution.

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Perino del Vaga] Kingston, Agnes Etherington Art Centre at Queen's University (Campbell 2004, 3, pp. 868–69); [Anon.] Kassel, Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, Graphische Sammlung, Kassel Codex, fol. 38v, no. 10 (Günther 1988, p. 359 and pl. 86b); [Alberto Alberti, attr.] Florence, Biblioteca Marucelliana, Vol. L, fol. 84r (Brunetti–Todros 1990, p. 20)

Ashby 1904, p. 69
Census, ID 47035

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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