DOI Artikel:
Ashby, Thomas: Sixteenth-century drawings of roman buildings attributed to Andreas Coner
DOI Seite / Zitierlink:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70293#0036
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The British School at Rome.
At the top of the plan Bramante's famous spiral staircase appears, and
is shown in further detail in A.
To the left of it is the Belvedere itself, in which we notice that (not
including the angle niches) there are no niches in the side walls,
except on the south side, where the Laocoon stood. It is not very
probable that Vasari's words (iv. 157) ' fecevi (Bramante) ancora la testata,
che e in Belvedere allo antiquario delle statue antiche, con 1'ordine delle
nicchie' refer to the niches of the facade towards the Giardino della Pigna
(either those of the ' Nicchione' B or those of the straight pieces on each
side of it): for the niches in each angle of the Belvedere were also
constructed by Bramante (Michaelis, Jahrbuck des Instituts, 1890, p. 13,
n. 27, cf. pp. 18, 28). The flight of stairs on the right hand side of the
'Nicchione' is not shown in any other drawing known to me. There is a
slight inconsistency between the method of their representation in the
general plan and in the detail B: the latter is no doubt the more accurate.
Serlio (Arckitettura [1562] iii. 142) shows a spiral staircase there. The repre-
sentation of the ' Nicchione' itself is extremely good—according to Baron
von Geymuller, better than any hitherto known.1 A rough sketch of it by
Baldassare Peruzzi (Uffizi 569) throws no light upon the question as to the
number of passage-ways through it. Coner only indicates one (that
leading to the room where the fountain was, cf. Michaelis, op. cit. p.9) : but
a drawing by Francesco d'Olanda in the Escurial (cod. 28-I-20 f. 19')
would make it appear that in 1534 there was an opening between each of
the pilasters (the pilasters themselves having niches for statues in the front
and sides) through whicli a garden could be seen, the foreground being the
steps of the Nicchione. The drawing is reproduced as Fig. 2, from a
photograph by Dr. Hermann Egger, who has been good enough to bring it
to my notice and to allow me to publish it. Serlio however (loc. cit) shows
a door in the outermost niche on each side, but nowhere else. The
Escurial drawing, further, shows it as a one-storied building only, whereas
later on (in 1550—1565, at which time the circular steps were removed,
two straight flights of stairs being substituted) it became a much loftier
structure. This was in accordance with Bramante's intentions—see his
1 The hitherto available sources were, according to him (op. cit. 76) Serlio, a drawing in the
Musee Wicar at Lille (No. 6 of the sketchbook attributed to Michelangelo, but really by Aristotile
and Giambattista da Sangallo: cf. Geymuller, Sac. nat. antiqu. de France, xlv. (1884), 243 sq.
Raffaello studiato come architetto, p. 29 n. 31) and a perspective view by Dosio (Uffizi 2559).
The British School at Rome.
At the top of the plan Bramante's famous spiral staircase appears, and
is shown in further detail in A.
To the left of it is the Belvedere itself, in which we notice that (not
including the angle niches) there are no niches in the side walls,
except on the south side, where the Laocoon stood. It is not very
probable that Vasari's words (iv. 157) ' fecevi (Bramante) ancora la testata,
che e in Belvedere allo antiquario delle statue antiche, con 1'ordine delle
nicchie' refer to the niches of the facade towards the Giardino della Pigna
(either those of the ' Nicchione' B or those of the straight pieces on each
side of it): for the niches in each angle of the Belvedere were also
constructed by Bramante (Michaelis, Jahrbuck des Instituts, 1890, p. 13,
n. 27, cf. pp. 18, 28). The flight of stairs on the right hand side of the
'Nicchione' is not shown in any other drawing known to me. There is a
slight inconsistency between the method of their representation in the
general plan and in the detail B: the latter is no doubt the more accurate.
Serlio (Arckitettura [1562] iii. 142) shows a spiral staircase there. The repre-
sentation of the ' Nicchione' itself is extremely good—according to Baron
von Geymuller, better than any hitherto known.1 A rough sketch of it by
Baldassare Peruzzi (Uffizi 569) throws no light upon the question as to the
number of passage-ways through it. Coner only indicates one (that
leading to the room where the fountain was, cf. Michaelis, op. cit. p.9) : but
a drawing by Francesco d'Olanda in the Escurial (cod. 28-I-20 f. 19')
would make it appear that in 1534 there was an opening between each of
the pilasters (the pilasters themselves having niches for statues in the front
and sides) through whicli a garden could be seen, the foreground being the
steps of the Nicchione. The drawing is reproduced as Fig. 2, from a
photograph by Dr. Hermann Egger, who has been good enough to bring it
to my notice and to allow me to publish it. Serlio however (loc. cit) shows
a door in the outermost niche on each side, but nowhere else. The
Escurial drawing, further, shows it as a one-storied building only, whereas
later on (in 1550—1565, at which time the circular steps were removed,
two straight flights of stairs being substituted) it became a much loftier
structure. This was in accordance with Bramante's intentions—see his
1 The hitherto available sources were, according to him (op. cit. 76) Serlio, a drawing in the
Musee Wicar at Lille (No. 6 of the sketchbook attributed to Michelangelo, but really by Aristotile
and Giambattista da Sangallo: cf. Geymuller, Sac. nat. antiqu. de France, xlv. (1884), 243 sq.
Raffaello studiato come architetto, p. 29 n. 31) and a perspective view by Dosio (Uffizi 2559).