Capital, Istrian stone, vase, floral patterns, acanthus, Italian, end 15th century.

Capital carved in Istrian stone. On the two carved faces of the capital , beautifully modelled acanthus leaves frame the compositions. In the shorter side, the abacus flower is supported by a delicate foliate axis and on the longer side it is supported by a vase.

From the Cavendish-Bentinck Collection once at Brownsea Castle, Brownsea Island.

Typical of capitals from Venice, capital 1857-1892 stands on a integral torus (suggesting that it was intended for a brick rather than a stone support) and is apparently made of Istrain stone. Istria was a province of the Venetian Empire, relatively close at hand and a prolific source of excellent carvable stone. Conventionally, a torus moulding does not belong to a capital, but is properly the uppermost part of of the apophyga of the shaft.
This solecism is quite frequently to be found in later Antiquity and then, as in the Renaissance, can be explained in the greater stregnth of a salient edge carried out in stone rather than brick or tile. Bramante, as late as the very end of the Quattrocento, either lazily permitted the continuance of a Lombard workshop tradition or ignorantly misconstruing a later Antiquity, suffered torus based capitals to be set upon stone columns, where forty years earlier laurana - the earliest and most meticulous Antique reviver of Antique nicety - would not.
The vase depicted on the longer of the two carved sides is distinctly lombardic in style, recalling Bramante's S.Maria Presso S. satiro, ca.1482. The volutes would appear to descend from the arch of Titus in the Roman forum (throughout the Renaissance a gate to the Savelli fortress and clearly well known in itself.; but the fame of its much imitated composite order, doubtless was considerably supplemented by the circulation of architect's drawing books.Throughout the Quattrocento there was however endless experiment with capitular design in all the larger Italian cities, perhaps resulting in yet greater vagary than in the febrile Roman Baroque. Accidental similarity to Antique models should be allowed for rather than assuming conscious Neo Classicism.

Stimulated by their contact with the ancient Roman architecture all around them, 15th-century Italian architects experimented endlessly with the design of capitals. This example incorporates a representation of a vase - a type of object that, like the capital, dated back to the Roman Empire.

1857-1892