To an approximate scale of 1:18

[Drawing] 61 [early seventeenth-century hand]; C[ORONA]. FORI. ROMANORV[M]. (‘Entablature in the Forum of the Romans’); [measurements] [Mount] 77 [x2]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

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

Bernardo della Volpaia

[Drawing] None [Mount] None

The capital and cornice depicted here are identified in the caption, written in antique-style capitals, as being in the Roman Forum, although they belong, more specifically, to the Basilica Aemilia which was on the forum’s northern side (LTUR 1993–2000, 1, pp. 167–68). By the start of the sixteenth century very little of the basilica had survived, and when the Codex Coner was produced virtually nothing at all still remained. What was still existing in c.1505 can be glimpsed through the main archway of the Arch of Septimius Severus in a topographical drawing in the Codex Escurialensis, this being a standing corner next to the ancient Curia Julia (subsequently Sant’Adriano). The fragment is now recognised as forming part of the ancient basilica, which mostly dates from the first century BCE, and as being the end of the structure facing the forum attached to its southern side (Freyberger–Ertel 2016, colour plate 6–7). Just how large this remnant was is unclear, but it certainly featured a square-sectioned pillar, or anta, at the extremity of each face, which was coupled on both with a Doric half-column supporting a distinctive entablature with mutules above the triglyphs and metopes ornamented with paterae and bucrania, the latter probably giving rise to the name ‘Forum Boarium’ that was sometimes given mistakenly to the area. By around 1510, however, this fragment had been dismantled and its stones transported to the Borgo district close to the Vatican to be reused for the building there of Palazzo Castellesi (Lanciani 1989–2002, 1, p. 121; see Cat. Fol. 8v/Ashby 14), as is specifically noted on an early sixteenth-century drawing of the entablature by the so-called ‘Pseudo-Cronaca’, as well as in a later copy drawing of this and other details by Andrea Palladio and a sketch plan by Sallustio Peruzzi. A few carved stones, however, were recovered from the original site in the early twentieth century (Hülsen 1902, pp. 41–57), and some still remain in situ (Lipps 2011, passim).

The Coner drawing is one of several early drawings relating to what had previously remained of the ancient structure. It may have been based on earlier documentation, either of what was once on site or of material moved to Palazzo Castellesi. The former is certainly a possibility because, even though Palladio noted that in his day nothing on site was left to be seen, the annotation on the Coner drawing giving the location as specifically in the ‘Roman Forum’ would rather suggest that it was based on a depiction produced before the building’s final destruction. Following much the same format of section and angled elevation used for many others in the codex, it features one face of the richly decorated capital and upper shaft of the anta (with the adjacent side also implied) on its right-hand side with a length of the entablature extending to the left, which includes three of the triglyphs. As such, it very much resembles subsequent drawings of comparable format by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger and Giovanni Battista da Sangallo, as well as the one by Palladio, except that the measurements are different, and what is actually depicted differs too in that Antonio’s and Palladio’s drawings are of a half-column rather than an anta and include just two triglyphs, while Giovanni Battista’s provides a section on the left of what could be either an anta or a half-column and has the entablature extending to the right. The Coner drawing, however, is like these others in that it does not record the anta’s position in respect to the half-column next to it, although it seemingly registers its relationship with the entablature higher up, in aligning its nearside edge with that of the triglyph above it. This means that the frieze ended with a triglyph rather than a portion of a metope, which accords with what is shown in several other early drawings, including the influential but highly conjectural façade reconstruction produced early on by Giuliano da Sangallo and included in his Codex Barberini. What is shown in the Coner drawing, however, is at odds with the corner detail later published by Antonio Labacco in 1552, which has the frieze ending, probably erroneously, with a partial metope. Other details of the Coner drawing may also be more reliable, such as giving the anta six flutes (this being consistent with Giuliano da Sangallo’s façade reconstruction) rather than the nine shown by Labacco, which makes the anta needlessly large.

The Doric order of the Basilica Aemilia, despite its shadowy existence, evidently made a deep impression on Bramante who, as Labacco explained (1552, fol. 18), approved of its unusual composition and imitated it in his own designs. Bramante’s attention to the ancient prototype is certainly evident from his use of a similar Doric order, with mutules above the triglyphs, for his Cortile del Belvedere (Fol. 46v/Ashby 78), as well as from the various borrowings also seen in the orders he designed for the exterior of the Nicholas V Choir of St Peter’s (Fol. 43r/Ashby 71) and for the Tegurio, the temporary housing for the high altar of St Peter’s (Fol. 47r/Ashby 79), which has a façade of three bays with a paired order at either end that is reminiscent of Giuliano da Sangallo’s Basilica Aemilia reconstruction. It could be that the Coner drawing of the basilica’s Doric order had some specific connection with Bramante, as this is rather implied by its similarities in handling with the drawing of the Doric order of the Cortile del Belvedere. Both of these, unlike the others of Doric orders in the codex, make extensive use of dark wash, and they also provide raking views that are axonometric rather than perspectival, features which, along with yet other similarities, could well point to a link between them, and the possibility they are both based on prototypes produced in Bramante’s immediate circle (see Cat. Fol. 46v/Ashby 78). Many architects, subsequently, followed Bramante’s example by turning to the Basilica Aemilia’s Doric order as a prime point of departure (Lehmann 1982; Ghisetti Giavarina 1983), but then conflating it, as Bramante had, with that of the Theatre of Marcellus (Fol. 45v/Ashby 76) for their schemes, as seen in Antonio da Sangallo the Elder’s Madonna di San Biagio at Montepulciano (1518) and Jacopo Sansovino’s later Library of St Mark’s in Venice (begun 1537). Details of both orders would be illustrated alongside one another on a double-page spread in Book Four of Sebastiano Serlio’s treatise (1537), so that an architect would be able, in Serlio’s words, to make a choice for the Doric order of ‘what he likes best’. Michelangelo copied the Coner drawing but made the raking view much less steep.

RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] Florence, CB, 2Ar: left side (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 48; Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 108–09)

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 26r (Hülsen 1910, pp. 34–35; Borsi 1985, pp. 144–46); [Anon.] El Escorial, Real Monasterio, 28-II-12 (Codex Escurialensis), fol. 20r (Egger 1905–06, pp. 79–82); [‘Pseudo-Cronaca’] Florence, GDSU, 1632 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 18); [Antonio da Sangallo the Younger] Florence, GDSU, 1413 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 98; Frommel–Schelbert 2022, 1, pp. 184– 85); [Giovanni Battista da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 1057 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 98; Frommel–Schelbert 2022, 1, p. 89); Serlio 1619, 4, fols 141v–142r; [Sallustio Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 676 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 123); [Andrea Palladio] Vicenza, Museo Civico, D 5v (Zorzi 1958, p. 104; Puppi 1989, pp. 103–04 ); Labacco 1552, unpaginated (fol. 16)

Ashby 1904, pp. 42–43
Ashby 1913, p. 205
Günther 1988, p. 338
Census, ID 45009

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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