To an approximate scale of 1:200

portical. anticuum. panteonis. (‘Ancient portico of the Pantheon’); 24. 16. cum. baxa. et. Capitulo (‘24 [braccia] 16 [minutes] with base and capital’); [other measurements]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over stylus lines and compass pricks

Bernardo della Volpaia

This perspectival transverse section through the rear of Pantheon’s portico is taken at a point a little in front of the antae (square-sectioned columns) abutting the brick face of the intermediate block in front of the rotunda. It shows the central barrel-vaulted area in front of the entrance portal, together with its left-hand wall (also featured on Fol. 38v/Ashby 62), plus the two vast niches that flank it, and, at the front, some of the bronze roof trusses removed by Pope Urban VIII in the early seventeenth century. Also shown is the right flank of the intermediate block, in accordance with the codex convention of representing buildings from a position just to the right of their right-hand sides, and it indicates, albeit rather awkwardly, that the second bay is rather wider than the first. It thus covers those parts of the exterior that were sheathed in revetment and reveals that the panelled treatment of the walls in front of the entrance portal is matched on the building’s external flanks, although it does not record that the intermediate block is of greater height and has an upper storey. Also indicated is the small projection in the entablature near the front of the flank, the result of a tapering column responding to a parallel-sided pilaster (see Cat. Fol. 8r/Ashby 15). As with most other elevation drawings in the codex, the details of the entablatures are omitted.

The caption – portical anticuum panteonis (‘ancient portico of the Pantheon’) – uses the adjective ‘ancient’ to describe the elevation and it is the only occasion in the whole codex that the need was felt to allude to a building’s age. This exceptional use of the word points to the possibility that it had here a very particular significance and meant that this elevation was considered to be the original ‘portico’ of the Pantheon, and that it was constructed before the columnar portico was added to its front. Such an interpretation tallies with views that were widely expressed subsequently. The columnar portico was considered to be a later addition by Baldassare Peruzzi (Burns 1966, p. 249), who expressed his opinion in an annotation on a drawing regarding the second pediment higher up and behind the first, which he described as the ‘more ancient pediment made of brick’ (fastigio piu antiquo de opera lateritia), a view that was then maintained by Andrea Fulvio (1527, fol. 93v) and, later, Andrea Palladio (1570, 4, p. 73), while Michelangelo supposed that the Pantheon was built by three architects in three successive stages (Vasari–Milanesi 1878--85, 4, pp. 511–12).

At least five other drawings dating from the sixteenth century are sections through the Pantheon’s portico at approximately this point, and two of these are like the Coner drawing in being rendered in perspective as opposed to orthogonal projection, one in Stuttgart by Giovannantonio Dosio and the other in Vienna by an anonymous draftsman from the second half of the century. Neither, however, includes the side elevation.

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Baldassare Peruzzi] Ferrara, Bibl. Com. Ariostea, MS. I 217, busta 4, no. 8r (Burns 1965–66, pp. 247–50; Wurm 1984, pl. 473); [Giovannantonio Dosio] Stuttgart, Württembergische Landesbibliothek, HB XI32, fol. 18r; [Anonymous Italian F] Vienna, Albertina, inv. Egger no. 119r (Egger 1903, p. 40; Valori 1985, pp. 155–57)

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 8r/Ashby 13; Fol. 23r/Ashby 35; Fol. 23v/Ashby 36; Fol. 24r/Ashby 37; Fol. 24v/Ashby 38; Fol. 38r/Ashby 61; Fol. 38v/Ashby 62; Fol. 39r/Ashby 63; Fol. 50v/Ashby 86; Fol. 65r/Ashby 111; Fol. 81r/Ashby 134; Fol. 83r/Ashby 136

Ashby 1904, p. 38
Ashby 1913, pp. 202–04
Census, ID 44679

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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