To an approximate scale of 1:3

Sub. angulo./ istius. coronae/ doricae re[ce]pta/ penes. S. mar/ cum. (‘Beneath the corner of that Doric cornice discovered within San Marco’); [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 maps out the underside, at a corner, of the corona seen in the one to its right (Drawing 3). It depicts the lower faces of the mutules at the ends of two abutting sides, and the coffer at their extremities embellished with a rosette. An almost identical diagram was executed freehand by Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo, although this shows the coffer as being square rather than as having a small area eaten away at the inner angle. This could indicate that Giovanni Francesco understood the entablature to have a triglyph at the end with a mutule above it, whereas the Coner draughtsman believed that the final triglyph and mutule were inset a little, so that the coffer had to be adjusted to take this into account. A more likely explanation, however, is that there was indeed a triglyph at the entablature’s end, and that both drawings show this to be the case; but Giovanni Francesco did not take account of the caps over the triglyphs encroaching into the space of the coffer, as is specifically shown in a slightly later drawing in the Fossombrone Sketchbook, whereas the Coner draughtsman took account of this and recorded the coffer’s shape actually very accurately. Such insight, however, is still inconsistent with the Coner view of the entablature (Drawing 3), where the presumed corner at the rear terminates not with a triglyph and mutule but with a little extra space beyond them. The location of the entablature given in the annotation is seemingly mistaken (see Cat. Drawing 3).

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 1398 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 99; Frommel–Adams 2000, pp. 249–50; [Anon.] Fossombrone, Biblioteca Civica Passionei, Dis., vol. 3, fol. 12 (Nesselrath 1993, p. 113)

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 44r/Ashby 73 Drawing 3

Ashby 1904, pp. 41–42
Census, ID 47182

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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