Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 07 (of 10): Tribolo to Il SodomaVasari, Giorgio
History
Lives of the most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects, Vol. 07 (of 10): Tribolo to Il Sodoma
Vasari, Giorgio
Art, Italian; Artists -- Italy -- Biography
Then in the cloister that is beside the above-named
church, he painted in fresco Christ scourged at the Column, with many
Jews around Pilate, and with a range of columns drawn in perspective
after the manner of wing-walls; in which work Giovanni Antonio made a
portrait of himself without any beard--that is, shaven--and with the
hair long, as it was worn at that time.
Not long afterwards he executed some pictures for Signor Jacopo VI of
Piombino, and, while living with him at that place, some other works
on canvas. Wherefore by his means, besides many courtesies and
presents that he received from him, Giovanni Antonio obtained from his
island of Elba many little animals such as that island produces, all
of which he took to Siena.
[Illustration: S. SEBASTIAN
(_After the painting by =Giovanni Antonio [Il Sodoma]=. Florence:
Uffizi, 1279_)
_Anderson_]
Arriving next in Florence, a monk of the Brandolini family, Abbot of
the Monastery of Monte Oliveto, which is without the Porta a S.
Friano, caused him to paint some pictures in fresco on the wall of the
refectory; but since, like a careless fellow, he did them without
study, they proved to be such that he was derided and mocked at for
his follies by those who were expecting that he would do some
extraordinary work. Now, while he was engaged on that work, having
taken a Barbary horse with him to Florence, he set it to run in the
race of S. Barnaba; and, as fortune would have it, the horse ran so
much better than the others, that it won. Whereupon, the boys having,
as is the custom, to call out the name or by-name of the owner of the
horse that had won, after the running of the race and the fanfare of
trumpets, Giovanni Antonio was asked what name they were to call out;
and, after he had replied, "Sodoma, Sodoma," the boys called out that
name. But some honest old men, having heard that filthy name, began to
protest against it and to say, "What filthy thing is this, and what
ribaldry, that so vile a name should be cried through our city?"
Insomuch that, a clamour arising, poor Sodoma came within an ace of
being stoned by the boys and the populace, with his horse and the ape
that he had with him on the crupper. Having in the space of many years
got together many prizes, won in the same way by his horses, he took
the greatest pride in the world in them, and showed them to all who
came into his house; and very often he made a show of them at his
windows.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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