Not known

• c.1515
  Datable to c.1515

Pen and brown ink over traces of black chalk

Bernardo della Volpaia

This ceremonial burgonet has an upturned peak that covers the front of the skull, like those seen in other Italian helmets of the time (such as one attributed to Filippo Negroli in Cambridge’s Fitzwilliam Museum: Pyhrr–Godoy 1998, pp. 209–12). The flange at the rear extends around the side to become an ear and cheek guard, similar in conception to an example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art of c.1550, made for King Henry II of France, that derives in part from designs by Rosso Fiorentino (Acidini Luchinat 2002, pp. 275 and 277). The cheek guard in the Coner drawing is adorned with a ram’s head while the skull is ornamented with a gryphon that has a tail culminating in a flower; and the crest takes the form of winged putto, like in a drawing in Giuliano da Sangallo’s Taccuino Senese, who is playing a pipe. Unusually among the Coner drawings of helmets, this one includes a face, which could either be that of the soldier who wears it, like a helmet drawing on an earlier page (Fol. 90v/Ashby 150), or part of the helmet itself.

OTHER DRAWINGS MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Siena, BCS, Ms. S.IV.8 (Taccuino Senese), fol. 38v; (Borsi 1985, pp. 302–10)

Ashby 1904, p. 73

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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