MONTE OLIVETO
We now come to that series of frescoes in the surrounding country, in
which, as we have already noticed, Sodoma’s artistic personality seems
to have first fully asserted itself. In 1503 he was given his first
important commission, which was to paint in fresco the two end walls of
the little convent of St. Anna in Creta, not far from San Quirico.[13]
He received twenty golden scudi in return for the six large frescoes
and the row of medallions which he left there. On the shorter wall,
facing the entrance, are three scenes representing the miracle of the
loaves and fishes. The most important and the best preserved of these
is the central one, containing the figure of Our Lord in white, with
upraised fingers, blessing the five little loaves which a smiling child
presents to Him. Behind these the group of apostles is densely packed;
the row of heads all the same height stretches across two thirds of the
fresco, giving a sense of congestion which Sodoma in his larger scenes
evidently found it very difficult to avoid. It is a defect he shares
in common with Luini, and it is noticeable, though to a less degree,
in the fresco to the left, where one of the younger apostles is still
offering bread to the already satiated crowd.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_ _Monte Oliveto, Siena_
THE LIFE OF ST. BENEDICT]
In both of these compartments there is a complicated landscape
background, a winding river, low hills with little towns, tall,
feathery trees, such as one sees in spring in Umbria, and in the
central scene a classical arch, evidently copied from some print or
painting of Rome.
The third fresco on this wall is too badly damaged to be clearly seen,
damp and neglect having done their work more or less in all of the
series. Upon the entrance wall, above the door, is a “Pietà,” the dead
Christ wept over by the Virgin, across whose knees He is stretched.
In the right hand fresco of this group Sodoma was possibly inspired
by a remembrance of a design, which had been immensely worked upon,
both by Leonardo himself and by his school, the Virgin and Child with
St. Anne. But instead of placing the Virgin on the knees of St. Anne,
as in Leonardo’s cartoon and in the works of all the other Lombard
masters, Sodoma raised the Virgin’s mother upon a throne approached by
steps, and seated upon these steps the young Mary with her Infant and
two Olivetan brothers at the sides. The colour has peeled terribly,
and the head of Christ is utterly defaced. This scene was enclosed
under a painted portico of rich Renaissance design, which corresponds
with that on the left, where stands St. Bernard, surrounded by six
Olivetan brothers in their white robes. In the soffit of the doorway
is a medallion enclosing a bust of Our Lord, and across the longer
walls of the refectory runs a frieze containing little square scenes
from the life of the Virgin in chiaro-oscuro, and round medallions of
saints, that of Santa Scholastica being one of the best. This frieze
is, however, almost destroyed by the damp.
The successful completion of these works led to his being employed
on a far greater series, that of the cloister of Monte Oliveto. That
important monastery had been founded on the ridge of a deep ravine
in the very heart of the wild tract of country lying round Siena by
Bernardo Tolomei, a young Siennese noble of devout tendencies, who had
been shocked by the corruption among the Benedictine order and had
instituted the reformed branch.
Luca Signorelli had been commissioned to illustrate the life of St.
Benedict in a series of lunettes around the four walls of the cloister,
but he had hardly finished nine of the series when he was called away
in 1498 by the council of the cathedral of Orvieto, to line the lower
part of the chapel of San Brizio with his dramatic presentation of the
Four Last Things. The monks of Monte Oliveto were thus left with their
convent walls unfinished, but the Abbot, one Domenico Airoldi, was from
Lecco, on the Lake of Como, and Vasari says that Sodoma went out to the
monastery to visit his fellow-Lombard. Whether he solicited the order
or not, Frate Domenico appointed him to complete the series. He painted
in all thirty-one frescoes, for which the rate of payment varied,
according to the merit of the painting. He received altogether 241
ducats, about £62, and beside this remuneration in cash he was further
rewarded by a rich suit of clothes, which had belonged to a Lombard
gentleman who had recently entered the order. From a quaint entry in
the Archives (quoted by Milanesi) we learn the details of which this
dress consisted. “A cape, a doublet of velvet, a gabardine of black
velvet, a pair of light purple stockings, a black cap, a hat with a
silken border, a felt riding-cloak, a pair of velvet boots, a sword,
and two embroidered shirts.” In such attire Sodoma introduced his own
portrait into the third fresco.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_ _Monte Oliveto, Siena_
THE LIFE OF ST. BENEDICT]
Besides the five-and-twenty frescoes in the cloister he painted sundry
scenes about the corridors and landings. On the stairs leading to the
dormitory he placed a very interesting “Coronation of the Virgin,”
within a _vesica_. Christ is in mauve and red, bending forward to place
the crown upon the Virgin’s brow, she being in white with a pale grey
mantle. The face of Our Lord is particularly beautiful. Below is a
pale landscape and the shield of the Olivetan order. On the wall of
the archway leading from the church into the cloister is a fresco of
“Christ bearing the Cross,” in which again the artist has remembered
the traditions of his Lombard training. The figure is a three-quarter
one, the face turned over the left shoulder. The flesh-tints are warm
and vivid, and there is a good deal of hatching on the muscles. A
purple drapery wraps the loins, and a soldier immediately behind Him
strikes Him with a sword. This figure has a good deal of pathos, but
perhaps there is more dignity in the fresco of “Christ bound to the
Column” which faces it. This is but a variation of the theme which
he treated so remarkably later on, and we may notice how invariably
Sodoma succeeded when it was a question of portraying Our Lord under
conditions of mental suffering. Here, too, He is almost nude, save
for the pale muslin girth; the hands are bound behind Him to the
flecked marble pillar; there is a light mauve sky behind, and faintly
indicated green hills. On the opposite lintel is a fresco of San
Bernardo in the act of establishing the Olivetan order, over the door
of the Father-General’s apartments is a “Madonna with St. Peter and St.
Michael,” and on one of the staircases an inferior “Pietà.”
The frescoes in the cloister necessitated great breadth of treatment
and a more monumental form of composition than anything he had yet
done. It was the severest training that he could have, and should have
brought out all his decorative faculties, but that he was hampered by
the colourlessness of his subject.
The greater number of the scenes consisted of only the figures of
white-robed monks, and Sodoma had to avoid the violent contrast
which would have occurred had he laid on too vivid colour in these
compartments where secular dress was introducible. The endless groups
of white forms against white convent walls or the pale outlines of
Roman hills could only become works of first-rate merit by virtue of
some pronounced strength in their grouping, and, as we have already
seen, composition was by no means Sodoma’s strongest point.
The earlier frescoes are, for this reason, perhaps the most interesting.
Vasari specially admired these at the four corners, St. Benedict
setting out for Rome on his white charger, followed by his old nurse;
the parents of St. Maurus and St. Placidus bringing their children to
the saint, the introduction of the bad women into the convent, and the
final burning of Monte Cassino by the victorious Goths. In all of these
Sodoma permitted himself the use of deepened colour, and, probably
being on that account more interested in the work, he attained a
greater success in the disposition and general treatment.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_ _Monte Oliveto, Siena_
THE LIFE OF ST. BENEDICT]
Throughout the whole series there are many single heads of striking
power, for instance, St. Benedict reproving the truant monk in No. 13,
and the stern, concentrated face of the mason building the wall in No.
24.
There are some graceful women’s types in No. 19, one of the few
frescoes in which female forms appear. It represents the attempt of the
wicked Fiorenzo to seduce the monks by introducing a score of women of
doubtful character within the convent walls. Sodoma, probably weary
in his artistic soul of treating the eternal white dresses of the
brothers, and delighted to get a chance of drawing nude figures, put in
some of these women undraped. With what grace and tenderness he could
handle the female form we may judge from his Eve in the “Descent into
Hades,” or the various studies for the Leda (considered a copy by Dr.
Richter) of the Borghese Gallery.
His fresco of “Christ bound to the Column” in the Siena Gallery,
and the famous “St. Sebastian” of the Uffizi, as well as the sundry
drawings he has left of studies for dead Christs, not only attest to
a great knowledge of anatomy but to a sentiment of the beauty and
divineness of the human form which is almost Greek in spirit.
The monks, however, not quite able to comprehend the painter’s serene
delight in the pure outlines of human limb and muscle, insisted on
having the figures draped, and Sodoma was set to alter his own work.
But the grace of these figures is apparent through their draperies, and
the combination of colour most harmonious. Behind them is a graceful
loggia, a classical arch and colonnade in the centre, and to the left
St. Benedict leans over a balcony to exhort them.
The first fresco of all, where St. Benedict leaves the paternal roof,
is a very charming one. The young saint in blue robe and flying orange
mantle, is mounted upon a rearing white horse. Behind him his nurse in
pink, follows more sedately upon an ass. To the left stands the father
in cap and gown of red, and the young mother in stately black garb,
leading the tiny sister by the hand. There are not too many figures
here to confuse the eye, and the colouring is most delicate. In the
middle distance, to the right, rises the town of Norcia, rich in towers
and battlements.
In all of these outdoor scenes, Sodoma has obviously taken pleasure
in the landscape, and we see, too, that on every possible opportunity
he had been happy to introduce animals into the groups. In No. 3,
the episode of the broken sieve, he has painted his own portrait in
the figure of the tall youth just outside the door. He has on the
gaudy clothes, the marvellous yellow mantle and red stockings, of the
Milanese who had become a monk. But he could not paint his own likeness
without that of his constant companions, the pet crow, whom he had
taught to speak, and the two badgers, and the goose and great white
swan, in the background.
Under each of these frescoes he painted two medallions, containing
fancy portraits of the various generals of the order, the only genuine
one being that of Fra Domenico of Lecco. But these getting spoiled in
the course of time and the eyes effaced, Fra Antonio Bentivoglio of
Bologna had them washed out altogether.
The series finished, Sodoma found himself back again at Siena,
surrounded by his badgers, and his marmosets, and all that herd of
animal life which Vasari despised him so for keeping.
Possibly at this time, too, was painted that much-disputed female
portrait at the Städel Institute, Frankfort, over which the old and the
modern school of criticism still wages a lively war.
Dr. Bode, in his _Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft_,[14] believes
it to be a northern production, and has attributed it to the Flemish
painter, Jan Scorel.
The compilers of the official catalogue of the gallery, acknowledging
in it somewhat of the Italian manner, have, at any rate, granted it to
be by Sebastiano del Piombo. It was Signor Morelli who first proclaimed
it to be a genuine work of Sodoma, a portrait, probably, of some young
Siennese gentlewoman, decked out in the jewellery of hand-wrought
gold, in which the descendants of the Etruscan race yet preserve their
hereditary skill.
Morelli draws our attention to the following characteristics, and as we
shall find them repeated in most of his work it may not be superfluous
to enumerate them here:
“1. The hands have tapering fingers, the knuckles being often
only indicated by a kind of dimple. The hand in the Frankfort
portrait should be compared with the hand of the young king in
the right of Sodoma’s fine altar-piece, the ‘Adoration of the
Magi’ in the church of St. Agostino in Siena; with the hand of
Eve in the fresco of the ‘Descent into Hades’ in the public
gallery at Siena, and with the hand of the Madonna in two other
pictures, one in the possession of Mme. Ginoulhiac at Milan,
the other in the Morelli collection.
“2. The eyes are almond-shaped. The characteristic is met with
in all Sodoma’s pictures: in the portrait at Frankfort, in the
‘Madonna with St. Leonard’ in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena, in
the ‘Adoration of the Magi,’ in St. Agostino, and in the fresco
in S. Domenico, both in that city; in the so-called ‘Madonnone’
at Vaprio, and in the frescoes in the Farnesina at Rome; as
also in the following drawings:--the head of a young man
crowned with laurel, and the Madonna with the Child who holds
a cat in His arms, both in the Uffizi--the last named being
ascribed to Leonardo,--and the study for the head of Leda--a
pen drawing at Windsor (Grosvenor Gallery Publication, 50).
“3. This landscape consists generally of a broad well-watered
plain, with groups of low trees. He often introduces on one
side a hill, with buildings, towers, Roman temples and arches.
Landscape backgrounds of this description occur in the female
portrait at Frankfort, in the picture with the ‘Madonna and St.
Leonard’ in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena, in the ‘Adoration of
the Magi’ in S. Agostino, in the ‘St. Sebastian’ of the Uffizi,
and elsewhere. I may supplement the characteristic of Sodoma
which I have just mentioned by a few more: _quod abundat non
viciat_.
“4. The ear in the female portrait at Frankfort is similar
in form to those in his other works. It should be compared
with the ears in the following pictures:--with those of St.
Leonard in the Palazzo Pubblico at Siena, of St. Joseph in St.
Agostino, of a halbardier with his back to the spectator in the
‘Crucifixion’ in the public gallery at Siena, and with those
of one of Alexander the Great’s attendants in the fresco in
the Farnesina. The children in Sodoma’s pictures have always,
however, a more rounded form of ear.
“5. Sodoma’s treatment of hair is also peculiar to himself.
In female heads it is often arranged in crisp waves on the
temples, as in the portrait at Frankfort. We meet with this
characteristic in the following works:--the ‘Lucretia’ in the
Kestner Museum, the ‘Roxana’ in the Farnesina, the ‘Madonnone’
at Vaprio, the Madonna belonging to Mme. Ginoulhiac at Milan,
the pen drawing in the head of Leda (Grov. Gall. Pub. n. 50)
and the pen drawings under the name of Leonardo at Chatsworth
(Braun, 51) and in the Uffizi (No. 421, Braun, 448(1)). These
are some of his leading traits. We shall call attention to
others as we proceed.”