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  • image SM volume 115/65c
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Reference number

SM volume 115/65c

Purpose

Drawing 3: Portal of the Tempietto at San Pietro in Montorio

Aspect

Perspectival elevation, with measurements

Scale

To an approximate scale of 1:30

Inscribed

templi. S. P[ietri]. monte. aureo. (‘Of the temple of San Pietro in Montorio [golden mount]’)

Signed and dated

  • c.1513/14
    Datable to c.1513/14

Medium and dimensions

Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash

Hand

Bernardo della Volpaia

Notes

This portal, bordered by a two-fascia architrave with upper ‘ears’ and capped by a simple cornice supported on volutes, forms the Tempietto’s main entrance, and is also seen in the overall view of Bramante’s building (Fol. 21r/Ashby 33). With its ears, the design is fairly like the window frame of the so-called Temple of Vesta at Tivoli (Fol. 20r/Ashby 32), but the closest ancient parallel for a portal with both ears and cornice volutes is that of the Early Christian church of San Salvatore at Spoleto. The drawing is similar in size to its neighbour, but the viewpoint is different in being central rather than offset to the right. It was positioned next to the one of the ancient portal probably because of the space available for it there.

Other early detailed drawings of the portal include one in Rome from the circle of Raphael and another in Florence from the circle of Jacopo Sansovino, but neither is related to the Coner depiction.

OTHER DRAWINGS MENTIONED: [Anon.] Rome, ICG, Vol. 2510, fol. 80Av (Günther 1988, p. 352 and pl. 78); [Anon.] Florence, GDSU, 1963 Av (Günther 1982, pp. 85-90)

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 12v/Ashby 21; Fol. 21r/Ashby 33; Fol. 22r/Ashby 34

Literature

Ashby 1904, p. 38
Günther 1973, p. 181

Level

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

Sir John Soane's collection includes some 30,000 architectural, design and topographical drawings which is a very important resource for scholars worldwide. His was the first architect’s collection to attempt to preserve the best in design for the architectural profession in the future, and it did so by assembling as exemplars surviving drawings by great Renaissance masters and by the leading architects in Britain in the 17th and 18th centuries and his near contemporaries such as Sir William Chambers, Robert Adam and George Dance the Younger. These drawings sit side by side with 9,000 drawings in Soane’s own hand or those of the pupils in his office, covering his early work as a student, his time in Italy and the drawings produced in the course of his architectural practice from 1780 until the 1830s.


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