Giannantonio Razzi,[85] commonly called "Il Soddoma," is said by some to have been a native of Vergille, in the territory of Siena; by others, of Vercelli, in Piedmont. Long residence, however, supplied the want of birthright: Siena claims him for her own; and if a charming whole, suavity of tint combined with force of chiaroscuro, be the principal characteristic of that school, no native has expressed it with equal evidence and felicity. This gaiety of tone and manner some have traced to the jovial turn of the man himself; as careless as gay, ever in pursuit of youth and beauty, though with an indiscretion that brands him with the stain tacked to his name, from a character so volatile and dissipated, that inequality of execution might be expected which marks his happiest effusions. Thus, in the Church of S. Domenico, where he represented Sta. Caterina of Siena, on receiving the stigmata, fainting in the arms of two sister nuns, we forgive to the energy of conception, the pathos of expression, and the sympathy of tone that press the principal group on our hearts, that neglect which left the figure of the Saviour below mediocrity, and own, with Baldassare Peruzzi, that we never saw mental dereliction and fainting beauty expressed with deeper sentiment and truth; a verdict which receives full sanction from him who relates it, Vasari, less the biographer than the merciless censor of the obnoxious Razzi, for whose moral turpitude and technic slovenliness his sanctimonious asperity found no other excuse than that of madness, which swayed him to neglect or misapply the powers of genius. Thus, in speaking of the fresco at Monte Oliveto, in which Soddoma had chosen to represent a bevy of harlots let loose with song and dance on St. Benedetto and his flock, to try their sanctity, he reprobates the licentiousness that had larded the subject with additional obscenity, whilst he concludes by owning that it is one of the best pictures in the Convent. How are we to reconcile the neglect which, disdaining to consult Nature, or to regulate a picture by cartoon or design, relied for the whole on practice and on chance, with the praise bestowed on Razzi's composition, the faces that speak, the breasts that palpitate, the torsos compared by some to the antique, by others to Michael Angelo, but by that indifference which often distinguishes the man of genius from the man of talent, him who possesses by Nature from him who acquires by art? Capacity and attachment unite not always; and to Soddoma, vain, whimsical, volatile, art appears to have been no more than the readiest means of procuring amusement or pleasure. "My art dances to the sound of your purse," said he to the Abbot of Monte Oliveto.