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Folio 47 recto (Ashby 79): Base, Doric capital and entablature from the Tegurio of St Peter’s
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Reference number
SM volume 115/79
Purpose
Folio 47 recto (Ashby 79): Base, Doric capital and entablature from the Tegurio of St Peter’s
Aspect
Cross section and axonometric raking view, with measurements
Scale
To an approximate scale of 1:18
Inscribed
[Drawing] 62 [early seventeenth-century hand]; .CIRCV[M]. ARAM. S. PETRI. (‘around the altar of Saint Peter’)
[Mount] 79 [x2]; ‘see Marg Chinnery p. 26’ [in pencil]
Signed and dated
- c.1513/14
Datable to c.1513/14
Medium and dimensions
[Drawing] Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over stylus lines; on laid paper (233x167mm), thin paper at top right, rounded corners at right, inlaid
[Mount] Frame lines, in pen and dark brown ink, 10mm apart
Hand
Bernardo della Volpaia
Watermark
[Drawing] None [Mount] None
Notes
As Ashby surmised from the caption, written in imitation-antique capitals, the drawing represents the Doric order of Bramante’s so-called Tegurio (‘shelter’). This was the temporary chapel in St Peter’s, located above the tomb of St Peter that was built to protect the shrine and high altar during the church’s rebuilding, and provide a covered space there for services to be conducted (Shearman 1974; Tronzo 1995/97; Niebaum 2021). Built, as the caption indicates, ‘around’ the altar, the Tegurio was rectangular in shape, with three arches at the front and one at each side, and it was positioned against the apse of the old building (Tronzo 1995/97). Commissioned by Pope Leo X (Vasari–Milanesi 1878–85, 4, p. 163), it was erected between Pentecost 1513 and Easter 1514 and was finally demolished in 1592 (Shearman 1974). The drawing, specifically, shows various details from the Doric structure, which are also depicted at an early date in drawings included in the Codex Mellon.
The Doric order was modelled closely on that of the Basilica Aemilia (Fol. 46r/Ashby 77) and is identical in having a capital with three rings under the echinus and rosettes decorating the neck, also recorded in a measured profile drawing by Baldassare Peruzzi, and then an architrave with two fascias, and a cornice with mutules and the same sequence of mouldings. The differences, which are relatively minor, are that the shaft of the half-column is unfluted as is the echinus of the capital, and the ancient references to sacrifice in the metopes of the frieze – the paterae and bucrania – are replaced with the Christian symbol of a cross. Bramante had previously used the Basilica Aemilia order as the prime model for the exterior of the Nicholas V choir (Fol. 43r/Ashby 71), which again has an identical set of mouldings, and he was presumably trying to achieve a formal consistency between the Tegurio and the larger building. The base, however, is more elaborate than the Attic base used for the Basilica Aemilia, having an astragal above the upper torus and pairs of astragals above and below the scotia, as well as a plinth with a short horizontal channel of twisted cable decoration carved into it (which are shown inaccurately in the Mellon Codex). This base could have been inspired by one from the Mausoleum of Hadrian that is illustrated in a drawing again from the Mellon Codex (fol. 23v), which bears the caption ‘base of the sepulchre of Hadrian now in St Peter’s’ (basa de la sepultura dadriano hora e i[n] san piero), which suggests that Bramante could have seen it in the old church. He may have regarded it, in being connected with the tomb of a Roman emperor who was also a pontifex maximus, as being typologically appropriate for the burial location of St Peter, leader of the Christian church and another pontifex maximus. Another base of the same sort, however, was located near the Capitol and is recorded in Giuliano da Sangallo’s Codex Barberini (Hemsoll 2019, p. 317), and a further source, perhaps the most likely one, was in the nave of Old St Peter’s, the columns of which had similar bases (Denker Nesselrath 1990, p. 43), as is recorded in a late- sixteenth-century drawing by Cherubino Alberti). These bases survive and were reused in the new church’s aisles.
Like many others featuring entablatures, whether accompanied by capitals or not, the drawing records the profile of its subject along with a raking view of its front. Yet it is unlike most other such depictions in showing the view axonometrically rather than perspectivally, an approach also found in the immediately preceding drawings of the Doric entablatures of the Cortile del Belvedere and Basilica Aemilia (Fols 46r/Ashby 77 and 46v/Ashby 78). It is also unusual in including the base as well, to produce a composite representation that involved some considerable distortion. The entablature and capital are both viewed from below but, with the shaft omitted almost entirely, the base is then seen from above, which, although awkward, allows all three elements of the order to be shown at a large enough scale for the mouldings and ornamentation to be represented clearly. No other drawing in the codex adopts the same hybrid technique, although capitals, or capitals and entablatures, are usually depicted in combined section-and-view from below and individual bases are often seen from above. A pentimento indicates that the capital was originally drawn too near the edge of the architrave and had to be moved, with the result that it is even more out of alignment with the triglyph above it.
The drawing, in the compilation’s original sequence, was positioned to face the one of the Doric order of Bramante’s Cortile del Belvedere (Fol. 46v/Ashby 78) so that two Bramante versions of the order could be seen side by side. Michelangelo made copies of the capital and the profile of the base, and he also depicted the same profile in another drawing. The annotation on the mount refers to the Soane Museum’s Margaret Chinnery Album and to a copy there of the Heemskerck drawing of the Tegurio (see Fairbairn 1998, 1, pp. 238–39).
RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] Florence, CB, 4Av: left side, and CB 8Ar: right side (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 46 and 49–50); Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 128–29 and 102–03)
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 15r (Hülsen 1910, pp. 24–26; Borsi 1985, pp. 104–08); [Domenico Aima (il Varignana), attr.] New York, Morgan Library, Codex Mellon, fols 6v–7r and 23v); [Baldassare Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 130 Av (Wurm 1984, pl. 122); [Circle of Maarten van Heemskerck] Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. 79 D 2a (Heemskerck Album II), fol. 52r (Hülsen–Egger 1913–16, 2, pp. 32–33); [Cherubino Alberti] Rome, ICG, Vol. 2502, fol. 9r (Denker Nesselrath 1990, p. 43)
DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 68r/Ashby 116
The Doric order was modelled closely on that of the Basilica Aemilia (Fol. 46r/Ashby 77) and is identical in having a capital with three rings under the echinus and rosettes decorating the neck, also recorded in a measured profile drawing by Baldassare Peruzzi, and then an architrave with two fascias, and a cornice with mutules and the same sequence of mouldings. The differences, which are relatively minor, are that the shaft of the half-column is unfluted as is the echinus of the capital, and the ancient references to sacrifice in the metopes of the frieze – the paterae and bucrania – are replaced with the Christian symbol of a cross. Bramante had previously used the Basilica Aemilia order as the prime model for the exterior of the Nicholas V choir (Fol. 43r/Ashby 71), which again has an identical set of mouldings, and he was presumably trying to achieve a formal consistency between the Tegurio and the larger building. The base, however, is more elaborate than the Attic base used for the Basilica Aemilia, having an astragal above the upper torus and pairs of astragals above and below the scotia, as well as a plinth with a short horizontal channel of twisted cable decoration carved into it (which are shown inaccurately in the Mellon Codex). This base could have been inspired by one from the Mausoleum of Hadrian that is illustrated in a drawing again from the Mellon Codex (fol. 23v), which bears the caption ‘base of the sepulchre of Hadrian now in St Peter’s’ (basa de la sepultura dadriano hora e i[n] san piero), which suggests that Bramante could have seen it in the old church. He may have regarded it, in being connected with the tomb of a Roman emperor who was also a pontifex maximus, as being typologically appropriate for the burial location of St Peter, leader of the Christian church and another pontifex maximus. Another base of the same sort, however, was located near the Capitol and is recorded in Giuliano da Sangallo’s Codex Barberini (Hemsoll 2019, p. 317), and a further source, perhaps the most likely one, was in the nave of Old St Peter’s, the columns of which had similar bases (Denker Nesselrath 1990, p. 43), as is recorded in a late- sixteenth-century drawing by Cherubino Alberti). These bases survive and were reused in the new church’s aisles.
Like many others featuring entablatures, whether accompanied by capitals or not, the drawing records the profile of its subject along with a raking view of its front. Yet it is unlike most other such depictions in showing the view axonometrically rather than perspectivally, an approach also found in the immediately preceding drawings of the Doric entablatures of the Cortile del Belvedere and Basilica Aemilia (Fols 46r/Ashby 77 and 46v/Ashby 78). It is also unusual in including the base as well, to produce a composite representation that involved some considerable distortion. The entablature and capital are both viewed from below but, with the shaft omitted almost entirely, the base is then seen from above, which, although awkward, allows all three elements of the order to be shown at a large enough scale for the mouldings and ornamentation to be represented clearly. No other drawing in the codex adopts the same hybrid technique, although capitals, or capitals and entablatures, are usually depicted in combined section-and-view from below and individual bases are often seen from above. A pentimento indicates that the capital was originally drawn too near the edge of the architrave and had to be moved, with the result that it is even more out of alignment with the triglyph above it.
The drawing, in the compilation’s original sequence, was positioned to face the one of the Doric order of Bramante’s Cortile del Belvedere (Fol. 46v/Ashby 78) so that two Bramante versions of the order could be seen side by side. Michelangelo made copies of the capital and the profile of the base, and he also depicted the same profile in another drawing. The annotation on the mount refers to the Soane Museum’s Margaret Chinnery Album and to a copy there of the Heemskerck drawing of the Tegurio (see Fairbairn 1998, 1, pp. 238–39).
RELATED IMAGES: [Michelangelo] Florence, CB, 4Av: left side, and CB 8Ar: right side (De Tolnay 1975–80, 4, p. 46 and 49–50); Agosti–Farinella 1987, pp. 128–29 and 102–03)
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 15r (Hülsen 1910, pp. 24–26; Borsi 1985, pp. 104–08); [Domenico Aima (il Varignana), attr.] New York, Morgan Library, Codex Mellon, fols 6v–7r and 23v); [Baldassare Peruzzi] Florence, GDSU, 130 Av (Wurm 1984, pl. 122); [Circle of Maarten van Heemskerck] Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. 79 D 2a (Heemskerck Album II), fol. 52r (Hülsen–Egger 1913–16, 2, pp. 32–33); [Cherubino Alberti] Rome, ICG, Vol. 2502, fol. 9r (Denker Nesselrath 1990, p. 43)
DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 68r/Ashby 116
Literature
Ashby 1904, p. 43
Günther 1988, p. 337
Günther 1988, p. 337
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