To an approximate scale of 1:100

Palatij. neruae. imp. (‘Of the Palace of the Emperor Nerva’); [measurement]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over compass pricks

Bernardo della Volpaia

This ancient structure was known in the Renaissance as the Palace of the Emperor Nerva, as the annotation indicates, and such a designation was still being maintained by Francesco Albertini in his early guidebook to Rome (Albertini 1510, 1, chapter 14, fol. Hiii v; 2, chapter 5, fol. O r). It is now recognised as being the perimeter wall that runs along the east side of the Forum of Augustus. It is massively conceived, being heavily rusticated in peperino stone from bottom to top, and divided into three storeys (only partly surviving in the upper levels) by smooth but equally enormous string courses of travertine. The storeys diminish in size as they rise. The bottom one, which includes various apertures, is on sloping land and varies in height from twenty-five to fifteen courses, while the middle one is fourteen courses tall and the top one thirteen. The rusticated courses, of equal height, are of alternating format, one composed of perfectly square blocks, the other of rectangular blocks that are usually three times as wide. The blocks are positioned in such a way that the joints of alternate courses are aligned vertically.

The drawing – not quite an orthogonal depiction of the structure since it shows the undersides of the string courses – is accurate in its detailing, although it does not actually correspond to any identifiable section of the wall. Rather, it is an image that combines the key elements of the design rather like a montage and uses them to provide as much information about the frontage as could be included in a single image. Such a representational approach is seen elsewhere in the codex, such as in a section of the Pantheon (Fol. 23v/Ashby 36) and a depiction of the Mausoleum of Caecilia Metella (Fol. 35v/Ashby 57), as well as that of the Palazzo della Cancelleria on this same sheet (Drawing 2). Its companion, this drawing, represents the forum’s long meandering perimeter wall by showing a just a small portion of it, with a corner at the right and a ragged edge at the left to suggest that it continues, and it records the correct shape and arrangement of the rusticated blocks, and even provides information about the profiles of the rustication and the travertine string courses. Neither the drawn corner nor the ragged edge, however, exists in reality, while the lower-storey arch depicted here as having a row of five voussoirs with their tops aligned may not represent the Arco dei Pantani (the arch into the Forum of Augustus to the side of the Temple of Mars Ultor), which has seven, and perhaps records an arch that appears in the wall some distance to its southeast. The drawing, in addition, records the correct number of courses belonging to the middle and upper storeys, while the decision taken to give the lower storey seventeen visible courses is a reasonable conjecture, especially given that that several of them were hidden then below ground level, which is implied by the lack of any definitive baseline at the drawing’s bottom.

In certain critical respects, the drawing is more accurate than other early images of the perimeter wall. It goes well beyond Giuliano da Sangallo’s fantastical, two-rather-than-three-storey version of it included in his Codex Barberini. It is in some ways similar to Baldassare Peruzzi’s later rendition of it, part of an extensive investigation of the temple complex and its environs (Viscogliosi 2000, pp. 53–62 and 182–86), which similarly indicates a corner at the right and suggests a continuation at the left, and shows the correct numbers of the courses on the two upper storeys, but represents them incorrectly as being uniform in composition and made up just of rectangular blocks of all the same size. In this latter respect, the Coner drawing is also more accurate than the engraving of the fully reconstructed exterior façade published by Antonio Labacco, which shows courses of alternating composition but with the longer blocks equivalent in size to only two of the square blocks.

The juxtaposition of the ‘Palace of Nerva’ with the Palazzo della Cancelleria was presumably not just the result of chance. Since both were regarded as palaces, they were thus typologically identical (Clarke 2003, pp. 213–14), and they have other similarities as well. Both have very long frontages which were suited to the same abbreviated representational technique; both have three storeys of regular coursework; and both follow the same rule of diminishing storey height. Viewed as a whole, therefore, the sheet could be read as a demonstration that modern architecture was now succeeding in following the premises and achievements of the ancients.

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 2r (Hülsen 1910, p. 5; Borsi 1985, pp. 45–47); [Baldassare Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 632 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 58; Wurm 1984, pl. 463); Labacco 1552, unpaginated (fols 5–6)

Ashby 1904, p. 34
Clarke 2003, pp. 213–14
Census, ID 47248

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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