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Folio 36 recto (Ashby 58): Arch of Janus Quadrifrons
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Reference number
SM volume 115/58
Purpose
Folio 36 recto (Ashby 58): Arch of Janus Quadrifrons
Aspect
Perspective view of east face, with measurements
Scale
To an approximate scale of 1:110
Inscribed
[Drawing] [measurements]
[Mount] 58 [x2]
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 and compass pricks; on laid paper (159x227mm), rounded corners at bottom, inlaid (rotated by 90 degrees with respect to original foliation, window on verso of mount)
[Verso] Blank, covered in glue and paper residue
[Mount] Frame lines, in pen and dark brown ink, 10mm apart
[Verso of mount] Window (152x219mm)
Hand
Bernardo della Volpaia
Watermark
[Drawing] None [Mount] Fragment of circle probably fleur-de-lys (cut by top of window)
Notes
The so-called Arch of Janus is a quadrifrons (four-faced arch) standing at the edge of the ancient Forum Boarium and dating from the mid- fourth-century CE (LTUR 1993–2000, 3, p. 94; Mateos–Pizzo–Ventura 2017, pp. 237–74). Square in plan, it has an interior with two intersecting barrel-vaults meeting at a central groin, and four near-identical elevations, each with a tall plinth that stands forward of two storeys of six niches, three on either side of the entrance, which were adorned originally with engaged columns (now lost). The principal elevations, facing the River Tiber and the church of San Giorgio in Velabro, have niches that are all semi-circular, whereas the sides have niches that are sometimes blind. Up above, until it was removed in 1827, was an attic level that was presumed (although probably incorrectly) to have been medieval (Platner–Ashby 1929, p. 280), which is recorded in topographical drawings such as one by Giovannantonio Dosio and illustrated by Sebastiano Serlio in Book Three of his treatise (1540).
The monument is not identified in the Coner drawing, which may reflect uncertainty about its name and even its function at the time. Nicolo Signorili in his Descriptio urbis Romae of c.1427, had described it as an arch of Constantine (Census, ID 246411), but the author of the early fifteenth-century Anonimo Magliabechiano in Venice’s Marciana Library had considered it an arch dating from the Antonine period (Census, ID 191520). Flavio Biondo, in his Roma Instaurata written between 1444 and 1448 but published in 1481, thought the building was not an arch but a temple dedicated to Janus (Biondo 1481, 2, chapters 49–50), perhaps confusing it with the Temple of Janus Quadrifrons built by the Emperor Domitian in the Forum Transitorium, and this view was still adhered to in the sixteenth century, Bartolomeo Marliani stating that it was considered be a temple by many people (Marliani 1544, 3, p. 42). By the late fifteenth century, however, it was also being interpreted as an arch as is suggested by the annotation on a drawing in Giuliano da Sangallo’s Codex Barberini identifying it as LARCO IN ROMA DI SAN GIORGIO, and this view gradually came to predominate.
The Coner drawing provides a highly objective account of the monument omitting the ruined superstructure that appears in other images of the period (e.g. a drawing in the Lille Sketchbook and the plate published by Marliani), presumably in the belief that it was not ancient, even though modern archaeology has reaffirmed its antiquity (Mateos–Pizzo–Ventura 2017, pp. 237–74). However, despite the usual practice in the codex, the depicted principal elevation is represented in two different states, unreconstructed and reconstructed, with the right half showing only those elements of the structure that survived, and the left half adding in the missing columns (presuming them to be Corinthian), thus giving an impression of what the arch looked like in antiquity. The elevation drawn is almost certainly the one facing San Giorgio in Velabro, where a piazza allowed a good view of it, rather than the one towards the Tiber, which was close to an intervening but now demolished city block (see Giambattista Nolli’s map of the city of 1748). This is also clear from a couple of details that survive only on this eastern side of the structure: the entablature at the springing level of the main arch has a re-entrant angle, a feature distinguishing the entablature on the façade from that under the arch, and the cornice at the top of the lower plinth does the same thing. These highly accurate details do not appear in any other sixteenth-century depiction of the arch, and the Coner drawing is also faithful to the monument in its representation of the unusual ‘L’-profiled keystone, which has a projecting ledge at the bottom supporting a seated figure (the sculpture omitted from the drawing). As a depiction of the arch, the drawing is much more reliable than the one in the Codex Barberini, which adds pilasters to either end of the lower level, sets the upper level back a little, greatly increases the width of the central archivolt, and surmounts the whole with an attic; and it is far more objective than an early drawing in the Codex Salzburg which is even more fantastical. In terms of its manner of representation, the arch is depicted, like numerous other Coner drawings, in perspective from a vantage point just beyond the right-hand edge of the façade, to provide views of the interior and the side elevation and allow a good understanding of the monument as a whole. Its main shortcoming is that, like many other Coner drawings, it is represented with unusually wide proportions.
The position of the sheet, which has no drawings on its verso, in the original compilation is unusually difficult to ascertain, this being for a number of reasons. First of all, it bears no early seventeenth-century folio number, but added to this is that, although an obvious place for it would be among the arches, there is no gap in the seventeenth-century numbering sequence to accommodate it. The sheet also differs from all the others in the codex in that the paper has its chain lines running vertically as opposed to horizontally, which means the other half of the double folio to which it was once attached is now missing. The sheet’s verso is unusual in that it is covered in glue and paper residue, suggesting that in the early seventeenth century it was initially laid down on a simple mount sheet before being removed from it and inserted into its present windowed mount. Another drawing in the compilation, that of the Arch of Constantine (Fol. 33r/Ashby 53) was also treated in this way.
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 20v (Hülsen 1910, p. 31; Borsi 1985, p. 125); [Anon.] Salzburg, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. Ital. M III 40 (Codex Salzburg), fol. 17r; [Raffaello da Montelupo, attr.] Lille, Musée des Beaux Arts, Lille Sketchbook, fol. 38r/no. 825 (Lemerle 1997, p. 302); Serlio 1619, 3, fol. 98r; Marliani 1544, 3, p. 54; [Giovannantonio Dosio] Florence, GDSU, 2502 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 135)
The monument is not identified in the Coner drawing, which may reflect uncertainty about its name and even its function at the time. Nicolo Signorili in his Descriptio urbis Romae of c.1427, had described it as an arch of Constantine (Census, ID 246411), but the author of the early fifteenth-century Anonimo Magliabechiano in Venice’s Marciana Library had considered it an arch dating from the Antonine period (Census, ID 191520). Flavio Biondo, in his Roma Instaurata written between 1444 and 1448 but published in 1481, thought the building was not an arch but a temple dedicated to Janus (Biondo 1481, 2, chapters 49–50), perhaps confusing it with the Temple of Janus Quadrifrons built by the Emperor Domitian in the Forum Transitorium, and this view was still adhered to in the sixteenth century, Bartolomeo Marliani stating that it was considered be a temple by many people (Marliani 1544, 3, p. 42). By the late fifteenth century, however, it was also being interpreted as an arch as is suggested by the annotation on a drawing in Giuliano da Sangallo’s Codex Barberini identifying it as LARCO IN ROMA DI SAN GIORGIO, and this view gradually came to predominate.
The Coner drawing provides a highly objective account of the monument omitting the ruined superstructure that appears in other images of the period (e.g. a drawing in the Lille Sketchbook and the plate published by Marliani), presumably in the belief that it was not ancient, even though modern archaeology has reaffirmed its antiquity (Mateos–Pizzo–Ventura 2017, pp. 237–74). However, despite the usual practice in the codex, the depicted principal elevation is represented in two different states, unreconstructed and reconstructed, with the right half showing only those elements of the structure that survived, and the left half adding in the missing columns (presuming them to be Corinthian), thus giving an impression of what the arch looked like in antiquity. The elevation drawn is almost certainly the one facing San Giorgio in Velabro, where a piazza allowed a good view of it, rather than the one towards the Tiber, which was close to an intervening but now demolished city block (see Giambattista Nolli’s map of the city of 1748). This is also clear from a couple of details that survive only on this eastern side of the structure: the entablature at the springing level of the main arch has a re-entrant angle, a feature distinguishing the entablature on the façade from that under the arch, and the cornice at the top of the lower plinth does the same thing. These highly accurate details do not appear in any other sixteenth-century depiction of the arch, and the Coner drawing is also faithful to the monument in its representation of the unusual ‘L’-profiled keystone, which has a projecting ledge at the bottom supporting a seated figure (the sculpture omitted from the drawing). As a depiction of the arch, the drawing is much more reliable than the one in the Codex Barberini, which adds pilasters to either end of the lower level, sets the upper level back a little, greatly increases the width of the central archivolt, and surmounts the whole with an attic; and it is far more objective than an early drawing in the Codex Salzburg which is even more fantastical. In terms of its manner of representation, the arch is depicted, like numerous other Coner drawings, in perspective from a vantage point just beyond the right-hand edge of the façade, to provide views of the interior and the side elevation and allow a good understanding of the monument as a whole. Its main shortcoming is that, like many other Coner drawings, it is represented with unusually wide proportions.
The position of the sheet, which has no drawings on its verso, in the original compilation is unusually difficult to ascertain, this being for a number of reasons. First of all, it bears no early seventeenth-century folio number, but added to this is that, although an obvious place for it would be among the arches, there is no gap in the seventeenth-century numbering sequence to accommodate it. The sheet also differs from all the others in the codex in that the paper has its chain lines running vertically as opposed to horizontally, which means the other half of the double folio to which it was once attached is now missing. The sheet’s verso is unusual in that it is covered in glue and paper residue, suggesting that in the early seventeenth century it was initially laid down on a simple mount sheet before being removed from it and inserted into its present windowed mount. Another drawing in the compilation, that of the Arch of Constantine (Fol. 33r/Ashby 53) was also treated in this way.
OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 20v (Hülsen 1910, p. 31; Borsi 1985, p. 125); [Anon.] Salzburg, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. Ital. M III 40 (Codex Salzburg), fol. 17r; [Raffaello da Montelupo, attr.] Lille, Musée des Beaux Arts, Lille Sketchbook, fol. 38r/no. 825 (Lemerle 1997, p. 302); Serlio 1619, 3, fol. 98r; Marliani 1544, 3, p. 54; [Giovannantonio Dosio] Florence, GDSU, 2502 Ar (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, p. 135)
Literature
Ashby 1904, p. 36
Census, ID 44576
Census, ID 44576
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