To an approximate scale of 1:3

[measurements]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

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

Bernardo della Volpaia

This is a drawing of a very small Doric entablature only three times larger than drawn on the page, and so it is possibly associated with a portal. The annotation on the accompanying drawing to its left (Drawing 4) describes the entablature as being ‘at’ or ‘owned by’ (penes) San Marco, but, as with the cornice depicted above (Drawing 1), this may be a mistake. Three other depictions of the same entablature, one by Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo produced at around the same time and two of later date, are all in agreement that the entablature was to be found – like the one illustrated above it – behind Sant’Angelo in Pescheria, the church build up against the Portico of Octavia and located around 400m to the south of San Marco. Giovanni Francesco’s drawing is annotated with measurements that are often identical, which indicates that it shares a common source with the one in the Codex Coner; and, although freehand, it is also similar in precisely recording the entablature’s profile at the same time as providing, at least partially, a perspectival view. It is similar, too, in having a drawing of the underside of the entablature placed next to it – despite there being a small apparent discrepancy with the corresponding Coner drawing (see Drawing 4).

This entablature appearing on the same page as the one shown above it could well have been a result of them being copied from the same sheet of earlier drawings, which may have provided the possibly mistaken locations. The pairing of the entablatures may have been suggested by the rather odd feature they share, namely the projection of their mutules or modillions beyond the face of the corona above. Their association is born out by the fact that they are also drawn together on a later sheet in New York, albeit on the recto and verso of the same folio rather than the same page. The Coner drawing was copied by Michelangelo.

RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] Florence, CB 3Av: left side (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 50; Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 120–21)

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 1398 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 99; Frommel–Adams 2000, pp. 249–50; [Anon. French] New York, Metropolitan Museum, Goldschmidt Scrapbook, fol. 34r (D’Orgeix 2001, p. 196)

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 44r/Ashby 73 Drawing 4

Ashby 1904, pp. 41–42
Census, ID 47183

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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