To an approximate scale of 1:17

.CORONA. SECV[N]DA. ARCHI. COSTA[N]TINI. (‘Second cornice of the Arch of Constantine’); [measurements]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over stylus lines

Bernardo della Volpaia

The drawing shows the cornice of the main entablature of the Arch of Constantine; the reference in the all'antica caption to the 'second cornice' distinguishes it from the cornice serving as an impost for the monument’s central archway (illustrated on the following page). It follows the format often used in the codex for representing corners of entablatures, showing it in perspective with a vanishing point behind, so that the side of the entablature seen (on the left) departs quickly from view, and depicting it from below so that the undersides of the corona and dentils are clearly visible. In representing a corner, however, an error was introduced, which was to add a leaf where the egg-and-dart moulding turned the angle – a feature commonly found in ancient entablatures but absent here.

The setting out of the composition also presented the draughtsman with some difficulties. The drawing was presumably begun at the bottom with the architrave but this, as is seen from pentimenti, was initially made too small and was subsequently enlarged, which had the advantage of making the entablature rise more comfortably towards the top of the sheet while also minimising its collision, mostly avoided, with the drawing to its left, which was probably executed beforehand; but the change also resulted in various incongruities. For example, the corona does not extend far enough to the left to make the final coffer beneath it square like the others. It seems likely, therefore, that the composition was being worked out as the drawing progressed – taking account of the neighbouring drawing and of the need not to encroach onto it. Previously, any such problems had been avoided by Giuliano da Sangallo who included two very similar perspectival views of a corner in his Codex Barberini and managed to show the modillions and corona correctly; but the Coner drawing differs from these in depicting the dentils and modillions even more steeply from below. This indicates that the Barberini depictions were not the immediate guides for the Coner drawing, and that the Coner drawing was presumably based on a lost depiction from the same family. Such problems would of course have been avoided, if the alternative format of section-plus-raking-view, used for many other depictions of entablatures in the codex, had been employed instead, which is how this particular entablature is represented in an early copy drawing by Palladio.

The Arch of Constantine’s entablature is highly unusual in having no cyma recta moulding above the corona, which is thus positioned at the entablature’s very top. A similar entablature without an upper cyma was used by Bramante for the interior of St Peter’s (Denker Nesselrath 1990, pp. 88–89). The drawing was presumably placed on the same page as the one next to it because the two entablatures have several similar characteristics.

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fols 11v and 20r (Hülsen 1910, pp. 21–22 and 30; Borsi 1985, pp. 91–93 and 116–22); [Andrea Palladio] Vicenza, Museo Civico, D 15v (Zorzi 1958, p. 55; Puppi 1989, p. 106)

OTHER IMAGES IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 33r/Ashby 53; Fol. 51r/Ashby 87. Drawing 3; Fol. 52r/Ashby 88; Fol. 62r/Ashby 105; Fol. 68r/Ashby 116

Ashby 1904, p. 45
Census, ID 45143

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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