To an approximate scale of 1:17

.in. S. pietro. jn. uatica/no (‘In St Peter’s in the Vatican’); [measurements]

• c.1515
  Datable to c. 1515

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

Bernardo della Volpaia

This now-lost Composite capital was seen, as the caption states, in Old St Peter’s. It is drawn in such a way that the left half records the capital’s underlying profile while the right half is a frontal depiction showing the surface decoration, and as such the depiction has similarities with other representations of capital that must be distantly related. The drawing is closely paralleled by a page of sketch studies of the capital by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, which includes elevational and sectional depictions. Another meticulous and highly finished representation of this capital was produced by Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo – who described it in an annotation as one of the ‘most beautiful in Rome of this sort’ (piu begli di roma di questa sorta), and this depiction similarly combines an analytical section (on the right) with a frontal depiction (on the left). In Giovanni Francesco’s drawing, however, the two studies are separate and are represented orthogonally, and the frontal depiction is distorted (rather illogically) so that one volute is shown flat-on and the other in steep perspective. A subsequent engraved view of it by Antonio Labacco was included his Libro appartenente a l'architettura although he associates the capital with the shaft and base of the Temple of Apollo Sosianus. The Coner drawing’s format and style are indicative of a date of c.1515.


This particular Composite capital differs slightly from those belonging to the Arches of Titus and Septimius Severus, such as in having a fluted abacus and an acanthus leaf at the centre that rises to the very top of the vase, and it appears to have been much imitated during the Renaissance. Capitals very much of this kind were used by Michelozzo for his tabernacle (1448) in Santissima Annunziata in Florence, and later for the courtyard of the Palazzo Ducale in Urbino (albeit without the channelling on the abacus). The type was later employed (again without the channelling) by Antonio da Sangallo for his Cappella Serra (1518/20) in Rome’s San Giacomo degli Spagnoli, and, later still, for the columns in New St Peter’s framing Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s Cathedra Petri (1656).

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Antonio da Sangallo the Younger] Florence, GDSU, 32 Ar–v (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 67; Frommel–Schelbert 2022, 1, p. 58); [Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 1804 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 102; Frommel–Schelbert 2022, 1, pp. 206–07); Labacco 1552, unpaginated (fol. 19)

Ashby 1904, p. 72
Ashby 1913, p. 210
Census, ID 48990

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