The Drawings of Michelangelo and His Followers in the Ashmolean Museum

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0521551335 c 07 CUNY 160 /Joannides 052155 133 1 January 11 , 2007 13 : 37

CATALOGUES 105–106 COPIES OF ARCHITECTURE 375

Fara, 1997 ,p. 24 (After Michelangelo’s final project for

the church.).

CATALOGUE 106

Interior Cornice of Main Crossing of St. Peter’s

WA 1942. 55. 686 .P.II Appendix A, p. 554 , Larger Talman

album, Fol. 174 / 68 of drawings

Dimensions: 206 × 263 mm, laid into an album page

507 × 355 mm.

Medium

Pen and ink.

Condition

There is overall discolouration and minor ingrained dirt.

There is a small tear in the bottom left corner and a minor

loss at the bottom edge. There is slight abrasion to the

medium and and various minor accretions.

Inscription

In pen, lower right:Cornicione della Cupola grande

di S o Pietro Vat no di dentro

M. A. Bonaroti

delin.

Discussion

After the structure as built and perhaps made within

Michelangelo’s lifetime. Parker attributed the drawing

to I. B. Mola (c.15 8 8– 1665 ), the father of the painter

Pierfrancesco Mola, because the inscription seems to be

bythe same hand as one on the verso of the preceding

page (fol. 173 )–perhaps a signature – attributing that

to I. B. Mola, who was also responsible for the draw-

ing on the recto of page 173. Because both the drawings

on fol. 173 are of details from St. Peter’s, it was natural

for Parker to have made the connection, but it is clear

that the drawings are of very different types and by dif-

ferent hands. Those on fol. 173 are diagrammatic mea-

sured studies of details from the portico and the interior

pilasters, whereas the present drawing is a pictorial study,

which would have been suitable for engraving; indeed the

drawing style might well indicate the hand of an engraver.