To an approximate scale of 1:10

[Drawing] nota. quod./ gociolatorius/ cadit. minuta/ .8. (‘Note that the soffit of the corona falls by 8 minutes’); .amphiteatri. Sauello[rum] (‘Amphitheatre of the Savelli’); [measurements] [Mount] 76 [x2]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

[Drawing] Pen and brown ink and grey-brown and brown wash over stylus lines and compass prick; on laid paper (232x165mm), rounded corners at left, inlaid [Mount] Frame lines, in pen and dark brown ink, 10mm apart; window (222x157mm)

Bernardo della Volpaia

See recto

As is clear from the caption at the drawing’s centre, the details shown here are from the Theatre of Marcellus, which was widely known as the ‘Amphitheatre of the Savelli’ in reference to the remains of its exterior forming a part of this family’s house. Specifically, they are of the capital and entablature of the Doric lower storey, which are presented, like many other such drawings in the codex, by combining an accurate cross section with a raking perspectival view of part of the front, this being shown from a low vantage point. The view includes two triglyphs and an intervening metope, which are positioned beneath two panels of guttae under the corona with a decorated coffer between them.

Although the format of the Coner drawing was not especially common at that time, there are other depictions of this particular capital and entablature that are composed in much the same way, and likewise show two triglyphs and a metope in a raking view of the front. One is a drawing by Giuliano da Sangallo in his Codex Barberini which is probably a late addition to it made only a short time before the Coner drawing was made, but this records the capital much less convincingly in having the echinus and the rings, or annuli, beneath it straightened out, and it mistakenly records the cornice as having coffers above the triglyphs and panels of guttae above the metopes rather than vice versa. The Coner depiction, by comparison, would appear to mark the moment when this format and the accompanying precision of observation were largely perfected, although some improvement was still possible, as is indicated by an annotation referring to the sloping of the underside of the corona, even though the drawing itself does not depict it in this way. A drawing by Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo executed a short time afterwards, however, which in many respects is virtually identical, does indeed show the underside of the corona, together with the guttae and coffer, as sloping rather than horizontal, and this feature is also recorded in an orthogonal drawing of the capital and entablature in Vienna dating from around 1519. Other images of this subject following much the same general format as the Coner drawing include an illustration published by Sebastiano Serlio in 1537 in Book Four of his treatise and an early copy drawing by Palladio – although both of these depict the corona as horizontal rather than slanting. Michelangelo, when he copied the Coner drawing, amended it by paying attention to the annotation and depicting the cornice with a slanting corona.

The drawing, otherwise, provides an extremely accurate record both of the capital (which is accompanied by an additional detail showing the annuli beneath the echinus) and of the entablature. This is all the more remarkable considering that that the entablature – especially the cornice – was, most probably, already in the gravely deteriorated condition in which Antoine Desgodetz recorded it in the following century (1682, p. 295), who had to infer its composition from the very small fragments of it that still survived.

The theatre’s Doric capital and entablature were to be of special significance for contemporary architecture from around the time of the Codex Coner onwards. The capital with its annuli provided an ancient specimen that corresponded most closely to the description provided by Vitruvius (De architectura, 4, chapter 3, 4), and became the prime model for Doric capitals used in subsequent Renaissance buildings. The entablature was similarly followed by numerous modern examples of broadly the same type – with a simple architrave, a frieze with triglyphs and metopes, and a cornice with guttae and a crowning cavetto moulding – even despite the anomaly of there being a row of dentils, normally associated with the Ionic order, inserted above the frieze. The entablature, including the dentils, was nevertheless followed for the most part by Antonio da Sangallo the Elder for the interior of his church of the Madonna di San Biagio at Montepulciano (1518) and, later, the façade of Jacopo Sansovino’s Library of St Mark’s in Venice (1537), as well as for the courtyard of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger’s Palazzo Farnese in Rome (1517), which has a corona that is slanted.

RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] London, BM, 1859-6-25-560/1r (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 47; Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 96–97)

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 37v (Hülsen 1910, p. 54; Borsi 1985, pp. 196–97); [Anonymous Italian C of 1519] Vienna, Albertina, inv. Egger no. 10r (Egger 1903, p. 18; Valori 1985, pp. 108–09; Günther 1988, p. 341 and pl. 34); [Giovanni Francesco da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 1705 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 102; Frommel–Schelbert 2022, 1, pp. 204–05); Serlio 1619, 4, fol. 142r; [Andrea Palladio] London, RIBA, Palladio 10, 20r (Zorzi 1958, p. 92).

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 26v/Ashby 42; Fol. 54r/Ashby 93; Fol. 67r/Ashby 115; Fol. 72r/Ashby 122

Ashby 1904, p. 42
Census, ID 44974

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