CODEX MELON   
  Attributed to Domenico Antonio de Chiarellis  
   Attributed to Domenico Antonio de Chiarellis   
    Roman Sketchbook of Menicantonio    
   Gift of Paul Mellon.   
  This sketchbook of architectural drawings is one of the most significant documents of the appearance and structure of antique and contemporary buildings in early sixteenth-century Rome. Containing interior and exterior views, elevations, and ground plans of Roman buildings, as well as a variety of decorative details, it is of great importance as an example of an architect's model book of the early sixteenth century. The draftsman's numerous notations of measurements and his various inscriptions in a precise and meticulous hand provide valuable information on individual projects but also demonstrate the diverse sources from which a Renaissance architect drew his inspiration. 

  Some of the most notable drawings in the Codex are related to the designs for St. Peter's by both Bramante and Raphael, but it also records many contemporary and antique Roman structures including the Palazzo dei Tribunali and its church of S. Biagio della Pagnotta, both planned by Bramante for Pope Julius II; the interior of the Pantheon; and the elevation and cross section of the Colosseum. 

  The most frequently published pages of the Codex Mellon are those that relate to Bramante's and Raphael's plans for Saint Peter's Basilica. In 1506, Pope Julius II commissioned Donato Bramante to design a glorious new edifice in place of the decrepit Old Saint Peter's begun by Emperor Constantine in the fourth century CE. The architect developed a centrally planned design that placed a Greek cross within a square (fols. 70v-71r). Following the deaths of both the architect and pope, Julius's successor, Pope Leo X, continued the project with Raphael at the helm. The artist and architect planned to lengthen the nave to extend the basilica into a traditional Latin cross format (see fols. 72v-73r), and a sectioned elevation drawing of the building's fac   ̧   ade on fols. 71v-72r indicates a number of Raphael's internal and external changes to Bramante's plan. These drawings closely reflect Bramante's and Raphael's own drawings for the project--some of them lost in the original--and thereby demonstrate their author's close connection with the workshop surrounding St. Peter's, where these materials would have been circulating. 

  Little is known about the draftsman responsible for the sketchbook. It has been variously attributed to Domenico Antonio (also called Menicantonio) de Chiarellis, a member of a family of stone carvers associated with Bramante, or to the sculptor-architect Domenico Aino da Varignana.  
   Inscription:   
  Inscribed on inside cover in pen and brown ink in two different hands. One reads: "ANIBALE FONTANA BONONIEN: si [si superscript] / CIVIS BON: FACIEBAT". An earlier inscription legible only with the help of ultraviolet light underneath that of Fontana reads: "DO MINICVS HA [A superscript] ...S · B ...NONIEN / CIVUS.RO.FACIEBAT / M.D.XIII".  
  Variously inscribed in pen and brown ink.  
   Provenance:   
  H.P. Kraus (1907-1988), New York (some expensive catalogue in the 1920s according to Hans Hubert); Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon (1907-1999), Washington.  
   Associated names:   
  Kraus, Hans Peter, 1907-1988, former owner.  
  Mellon, Paul, former owner.  
  Aimo, Domenico, -1539, Formerly attributed to.  
   Date     :    1513  
   Current Location:    The Morgan Library and Museum  
   Language     :    Latin  
   Size / Format     :    166   pages /   Dimensions: 14,5cm  x 20,8 cm  
    Binding     : Burgundy leatherbound 


    Limited to just 10       0       Deluxe       leather-bound copies       , bound by a master bookbinder/old medieval manuscript expert with 40 years of expertise in book restoration       .   
   Shipped with Free Express FEDEX delivery to worldwide.