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Drawing 2: Decastyle temple based on an ancient relief
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Reference number
SM volume 115/64b
Purpose
Drawing 2: Decastyle temple based on an ancient relief
Aspect
Perspectival elevation, with measurements
Scale
To an approximate scale of 1:4
Inscribed
[Measurements]
Signed and dated
- c.1513/14
Datable to c.1513/14
Medium and dimensions
Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over stylus lines
Hand
Bernardo della Volpaia
Notes
It has long been realised that this drawing of temple portico is a representation of an ancient relief rather than a reconstruction of an actual building, the relief, as Ashby noted, being a fragment now in Rome’s Museo Nazionale Romano and previously in the Museo delle Terme (Ashby 1904). As Ashby also recognised, the same relief is the subject of drawings from the mid- sixteenth century in the Codex Pighianus and Codex Coburgensis, with a further one found in the Dosio Sketchbook in Florence. Such a deduction was based in part on the small-scale measurements that are given on the drawing, and it is further confirmed by the ornamental anthemion decoration running along and projecting upwards from the crest of the pediment, as well as by the perspectival rendition of the open and oversized portal at the centre, these all being features that are matched in the relief.
The drawing, however, is hardly a simple record of the fragmentary relief, which makes it unlike the later images. These record very faithfully what is represented in the ancient fragment, which is most of the left and central portions of the façade’s upper reaches originally forming the backdrop to a procession depicted below, also seen in a further fragment (un-noticed early on) that also still survives (see Ambrogi 1985, pp. 104–08). Instead, it is very much a reconstruction of what the temple would have looked like, bar the sculpted decorations in the pediment, had its depiction been complete. Thus, it carefully augments the relief by showing the full height of the portico and restoring the column on the far left and the five on the right, which are missing from the surviving fragments. The building is also depicted according to conventions seen in other Coner drawings, rather than by simply extrapolating from the relief. Accordingly, the entablature and pediment are delineated in simple outline as well as with no added ornament – like in the drawing of the Temple of Serapis above – and, in addition, the masonry of the cella continues beyond the far-right column, as if the intention was to add in a raking view of the building’s flank, again like in the drawing above.
Interestingly, the drawing is the only one in the Codex Coner to depict the porticoed façade of an ancient temple of the kind described by Vitruvius, one with frontal columns and a rectangular cella. Other temples of this format, such as those in the Roman Forum dedicated to Castor and Pollux and to Vespasian, are shown in the codex in their surviving fragmentary conditions (Fol. 41r/Ashby 67), although contemporary architects such as Antonio da Sangallo and his brother Giovanni Battista were beginning to speculate about how these buildings and others could be reconstructed, as is seen for example in Giovanni Battista’s drawings of them in the Codex Rootstein-Hopkins (see Fol. 41r/Ashby 67 Drawing 2), dating from the third decade of the sixteenth century. The building depicted could be the Temple of Venus and Rome (Ashby 1904), which had a ten-column-wide – i.e. decastyle – façade, but nobody at this early time realised that the surviving remains of this latter building were originally surrounded by colonnades (see Cat. Fol. 14r/Ashby 23 Drawing 1). The drawn building’s resemblance to the conjectural frontage of the Temple of Serapis shown above may well explain why the two were placed together on the same page.
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giovanni Battista da Sangallo] London, RIBA, Codex Rootstein-Hopkins, fols 16r and 17r (Campbell–Nesselrath 2006, pp. 75 and 77; Campbell in Frommel–Schelbert 2022, 1, pp. 253–54); [Anon.] Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. lat. fol. 61 (Codex Pighianus), fol. 276v (Wrede–Harprath 1986, pp. 68–69); [Anon.] Coburg, Veste, KK, Codex Coburgensis, no. 130 (Wrede–Harprath 1986, p. 69); [Giovannantonio Dosio] Florence, BNC, N.A. 618 (Dosio Sketchbook), fol. 48v (Tedeschi Grisanti 1983, p. 96)
The drawing, however, is hardly a simple record of the fragmentary relief, which makes it unlike the later images. These record very faithfully what is represented in the ancient fragment, which is most of the left and central portions of the façade’s upper reaches originally forming the backdrop to a procession depicted below, also seen in a further fragment (un-noticed early on) that also still survives (see Ambrogi 1985, pp. 104–08). Instead, it is very much a reconstruction of what the temple would have looked like, bar the sculpted decorations in the pediment, had its depiction been complete. Thus, it carefully augments the relief by showing the full height of the portico and restoring the column on the far left and the five on the right, which are missing from the surviving fragments. The building is also depicted according to conventions seen in other Coner drawings, rather than by simply extrapolating from the relief. Accordingly, the entablature and pediment are delineated in simple outline as well as with no added ornament – like in the drawing of the Temple of Serapis above – and, in addition, the masonry of the cella continues beyond the far-right column, as if the intention was to add in a raking view of the building’s flank, again like in the drawing above.
Interestingly, the drawing is the only one in the Codex Coner to depict the porticoed façade of an ancient temple of the kind described by Vitruvius, one with frontal columns and a rectangular cella. Other temples of this format, such as those in the Roman Forum dedicated to Castor and Pollux and to Vespasian, are shown in the codex in their surviving fragmentary conditions (Fol. 41r/Ashby 67), although contemporary architects such as Antonio da Sangallo and his brother Giovanni Battista were beginning to speculate about how these buildings and others could be reconstructed, as is seen for example in Giovanni Battista’s drawings of them in the Codex Rootstein-Hopkins (see Fol. 41r/Ashby 67 Drawing 2), dating from the third decade of the sixteenth century. The building depicted could be the Temple of Venus and Rome (Ashby 1904), which had a ten-column-wide – i.e. decastyle – façade, but nobody at this early time realised that the surviving remains of this latter building were originally surrounded by colonnades (see Cat. Fol. 14r/Ashby 23 Drawing 1). The drawn building’s resemblance to the conjectural frontage of the Temple of Serapis shown above may well explain why the two were placed together on the same page.
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giovanni Battista da Sangallo] London, RIBA, Codex Rootstein-Hopkins, fols 16r and 17r (Campbell–Nesselrath 2006, pp. 75 and 77; Campbell in Frommel–Schelbert 2022, 1, pp. 253–54); [Anon.] Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Ms. lat. fol. 61 (Codex Pighianus), fol. 276v (Wrede–Harprath 1986, pp. 68–69); [Anon.] Coburg, Veste, KK, Codex Coburgensis, no. 130 (Wrede–Harprath 1986, p. 69); [Giovannantonio Dosio] Florence, BNC, N.A. 618 (Dosio Sketchbook), fol. 48v (Tedeschi Grisanti 1983, p. 96)
Literature
Ashby 1904, pp. 37–38
Ashby 1913, p. 202
Census, ID 44003
Ashby 1913, p. 202
Census, ID 44003
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