LATER YEARS
Sodoma had worked hitherto for private patrons, or at best for
ecclesiastical communities. Of municipal commissions he had received
none as yet, and it was only in 1529 that the city gave him his first
large public order in the painting of the walls of their council
chambers.
The great Gothic Palazzo della Signoria which rises at the lower end of
the sloping square had already lent its walls to decoration by older
and stiffer hands. The pre-Raphaelites of Siena, Lippo Memmi, Ambrogio
Lorenzetti and others, had left there certain symbolical frescoes of
quaint, grave beauty, rich in phantasy and sentiment, if meagre in line.
Sodoma was the first of the moderns called to work there.
Whether the Board of Guardians directing the scheme intended to cover
the entire walls of the Sala del Mappamondo with decorative frescoes
has not been ascertained. At any rate, Sodoma was instructed to paint
two huge figures, standing within ornamental niches, which should form
pendants to one another, and a third, treated in a similar manner, on
the wall at right angles to them. The commission was given him in 1529,
and during the same year he completed the two first, the colossal St.
Victor over the door which leads to the Sala della Pace, and the St.
Ansano baptising neophytes in the niche near the window.
[Illustration:
_Lombardi photo_ _Palazzo Pubblico, Siena_
SAINT VICTOR]
In September, when these were completed, two fellow-painters were
called in to estimate their value--Domenico Beccafumi, who had been
Sodoma’s companion in the work at San Bernardino, and a certain
Bartolommeo di David, of whom all that we know, is that a few years
later he was associated with Riccio in the painting of a chapel in
the Collegiata d’ Asciano. These men appraised the works as meriting
twenty-seven scudi of good gold,[40] with which sum Sodoma expressed
himself perfectly satisfied.
He had taken pains over the work. In these two Saints it was
principally youthful strength and grace which he was required to
represent; the moral and physical force of the Roman soldier, the
sweetness of the young martyred missionary.
He certainly portrayed strength in the commanding figure of St. Victor,
majestically grand in his brilliant toga of red, with blue cloak, and
cuirass of green and gold, but it is the strength of young, vigorous
manhood in repose. The power of movement is suggested under the heavy
armour, but there is no attempt at representing action, and for this
very reason Sodoma attained a greater success than if he had aimed at
dramatic display.
A pencil sketch in the Uffizi (No. 1939) reproduces this figure in
detail. It is not, however, recognised by Morelli, and bears every
probability of being a copy by a pupil. In the accompanying fresco of
St. Ansano baptising neophytes, with its wistful, feminine type of
beauty, he has found the exact antithesis of St. Victor. It is open
to discussion whether these two groups do not, in their composition,
outstep the limits of purely decorative art. The kneeling Christian,
whose foot lies over the edge of the painted parapet, and the seated
_putto_ who bears St. Victor’s helmet, are as far removed from
the reserve and restriction of the quattro-cento as Correggio’s
foreshortened flights of angels. The introduction of absolute realism
and the attempt to produce the illusion of tactile values was now
growing common, even in mural decoration, where a finer sense of
_boundaries_ and a flatter treatment of form would have led undoubtedly
to more artistic results. Raphael, whom we may perhaps consider as
the greatest of decorative painters, was, in his earlier work, guided
by a far more refined and truthful perception of the exigencies and
“unities” of this form of art than in his latest period, when the
sculpturesque manner of regarding painting had become common. For this
reason the “School of Athens,” and still more so the “Disputa,” fulfil
their decorative purpose more fully than the “Parnassus,” in spite of
its individual forms of beauty. Sodoma, in his work of this period,
could not escape the influence of the time, and we find him repeating
the same defect in his San Bernardo Tolomei on the right hand wall, and
in the Spanish chapel of San Spirito, which he was next employed to
fresco.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_ _Palazzo Pubblico, Siena_
SAN ANSANO]
The town was now under the protection of Charles V. and occupied by
a French and Spanish garrison. The latter was sufficiently numerous
to own the little chapel referred to, and its decoration by Sodoma
was brought about in the following manner. Armenini relates the
quaint story in the first book of his _Veri precetti della pittura_
(chap. i.): The Cavalier Sodoma, he informs us, being one day rudely
accosted by a soldier of the guard, was unable to obtain from him the
apology which he demanded, or to discover the offender’s name from his
companions. Sodoma was determined to obtain redress, and, after gazing
fixedly at the man for some moments, he turned on his heel, went home,
and there carefully drew a sketch of his features. The following day
he presented himself before the Spanish governor, told his tale and
demanded the satisfaction that his dignity required. The governor was
quite willing to punish the insolent soldier, but wished to know how to
identify him. Sodoma then drew the portrait from under his cloak, and
exposing it to the view of all present, exclaimed: “Sire, this is his
face. I cannot describe him to you otherwise.”
The man was instantly recognised, and received his merited punishment,
and the painter, brought thus before the notice of the officers, not
only became exceedingly popular among the Spanish colony, but very
shortly after was commissioned to decorate their chapel.
There is in the Uffizi a first sketch in red chalk for this fresco.
Frizzoni mentions it as Sodoma’s, but Morelli does not include it in
his list of the artist’s drawings. In the sketch St. James is on foot,
a wand or staff in his hands, while, in the fresco, he rides furiously
on horseback, lashing with his sword at the recumbent figures of four
Turks, who, seen from below, are considerably foreshortened and again
lap over the parapet which forms the boundary line of this fresco.
This large semicircular fresco is the upper portion or lunette of the
chapel. The smaller lunette immediately under it forms part and parcel
of the altar, and represents the Madonna investing St. Idelfonzo with
the white chasuble of heavenly tissue with which she awarded his zeal
in writing a treatise upon her perpetual virginity. St. Lucy, in a robe
of greenish blue falling into short clinging folds, is perhaps the most
graceful figure of the group. St. Rosalie, crowned with flowers, kneels
behind St. Idelfonzo, and two adoring angels fill up the spaces behind
the Madonna’s head.
The minor saints which flank the altar-piece (not by Sodoma) have
gone, unfortunately, black, from the smoke of the candles which an
unappreciative clergy permits to flare before them. Nearest the altar
are St. Niccolò Tolentino and the Archangel Michael in the act of
chaining the fiend. Outside the arch which confines the frescoes,
properly belonging to the altar, are two saints, Sebastian and Anthony,
and in the species of spandrel formed by the space between it and the
walls of the chapel, two pairs of angels bear, amid floating ribbons,
the arms of Spain, and St. James of Compostella.
On the 20th of January 1530,[41] Sodoma had finished the two figures of
St. Sebastian and St. Anthony of Padua, and was paid four florins for
the former and six for the latter painting, and by the 16th of April
he had also completed the lower lunette with its kneeling groups of
figures.
The Spaniards were distinctly pleased with their chapel, and the
Emperor, Charles V., coming to Siena, and seeing this fresco, is
reported to have exclaimed that, in order to possess it, he would have
given all his cavalry. It was probably the execution of this work which
obtained for the painter the imperial title of Count Palatine.
The Count Giovanni Antonio Bazzi was next occupied on a small fresco
on the outside wall of a house belonging to the guild of shoemakers,
or Arte dei Calzolai.[42] On the wall at the corner of the Piazza
Tolomei, he painted Madonna and her Divine Child, with the saints,
John, Francis, Roch, and Crispin, the lawyer and patron of cobblers,
with a shoe in his hand. Vasari praises the execution of this work,
but the smoke and fumes of a laboratory which long existed immediately
underneath it, have more than obliterated the outlines of the work.
In the year after he might have been found mounted upon a mighty
scaffolding outside one of the city gates, that called Porta San Viene.
It had originally been named Porta Pispini, but after the death of
San Ansano, and the triumphal carrying of his body into the city, it
is said to have been altered to a corruption of _Il Santo Viene_ (The
saint comes). It was originally called Porta Santa Eugenie, _now_ Porta
Pispini.
The _Balia_ had been deliberating ever since 1526 about the painting in
fresco of this gateway, and finally decided to give the commission to
Sodoma, who had comported himself so well in the work he had left in
the town hall.
Seated aloft, some sixty feet or more from the ground, with large,
broad touches of his brush, he drew a colossal “Nativity,” all the
figures considerably larger than life-size.
A classic temple fills the middle distance; through the arches to the
left is seen a group of ruins; to the right a landscape with another
small peristyle temple. Immediately in front of this building kneels
the Madonna, with clasped hands. Her outline is just decipherable, but
all the colour has faded from her robe, and the Christ Child, who must
have lain at her feet, has vanished entirely. Above are ranged groups
of angels, singing from open scrolls of music, or with eyes uplifted to
the soffit of the arch, where, within a glory, flies the figure of a
child, symbolising The Word become Flesh.
On either side of this soffit are three groups of angels, who gaze
and point downward to the scene of the Nativity on the wall. These
groups of singing angels, now, like the lower part, faded into mere dim
shadows, show, upon close examination from the scaffolding put up for
restoration, very great beauty of outline and expression. The fresco
bears the inscription: DEIPARAE VIRGINI pro victoria, libertate et
salute hujus urbis, populus senensis ejus nomini devotus--A.D. M.D.XXXI.
As one of the bystanders he drew his own portrait, now elderly, and
with a beard. In his hand was a brush, pointing to a small _cartellino_
on which he had traced, Vasari says, the word _Feci_ (I made it).
Milanesi, or rather the commentators of Sansoni’s edition of Vasari,
assert that this motto was _Fac tu_ (Do thou likewise), and was a kind
of bombastic challenge to his critics.
It is possible that the honours which were now being showered upon
him, and the ease with which he surpassed his fellow-painters in Siena
may have turned the artist’s head. He had the disadvantage of standing
alone, without that strenuous rivalry which the presence of other
masters of equal merit would have necessitated. He went very rarely to
Florence, where he was not liked, and he could paint so easily and so
well when he chose, that it seemed hardly worth his while to make those
laborious studies and drawings which should serve as a preparation for
all thoughtful work. He now returned to San Bernardino to finish the
series begun in 1518, and painted the last of the four large frescoes,
that of the Virgin’s Coronation. From San Bernardino he went back to
the Palazzo Pubblico to complete the third figure begun there five
years before.
Upon the entrance wall of the Sala del Mappamondo, in the corner
at right angles to his St. Victor, he had sketched a figure of San
Bernardo Tolomei, standing, in white robes, book and crozier in hand,
beneath a heavily ornamented portico, above which a group of _putti_
are dancing. But with his characteristic inability to work for long
together at any one subject, he had left this fresco half finished for
more than four years, and the _Signoria_ waxed impatient with him.
In a document preserved in the Archivio delle Riformagioni di Siena,
is to be found this entry: “Finally, for our having been instrumental
in causing the painter Sodoma to finish the painting of the Blessed
Bernardo in the Sala del Mappamondo, he having already had eight
scudi for it, which our predecessors have left a note of: and he,
Sodoma, having now to be paid the remainder for the work which he
has meanwhile completed, may it so please your Magnificent Lordships
so to ordain that the said Sodoma be paid for the laudable work, by
Messer Francesco Tholomei, most worthy artisan of the cathedral church,
according to what he has largely promised to us and to the said Sodoma.”
The adjective “laudable” is certainly not here out of place, for,
evidently unwilling to put beside his colossal saints work of an
inferior quality, he concentrated his attention sufficiently to produce
a figure full of individuality and delicate sentiment, perhaps more
successful in its expression than either of the other two.
Throughout 1535 he was still working in the Palazzo Pubblico, at the
fine “Resurrection” which he now painted in one of the lower halls, the
apartment used for the weighing and taxing of the salt.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_ _Palazzo Pubblico, Siena_
THE RESURRECTION]
There are the three coats-of-arms, all of the city of Siena, which were
separated from this picture when it was moved, and are now to be found
high up in an arch in a room not usually shown, where the registers
are kept. In 1842 the fresco was sawn away from the wall where it was
originally traced, and transported to a room on the first floor, now
the office of the Mayor. The fresco is a large one, and the figures
all life-size. The lid of the stone sarcophagus has been raised, and
the rising figure of the Redeemer steps into the cold air of dawn. The
face is not particularly attractive, but the whole figure is strong
in its triumphant sense of new-born life and victory over the grave.
This feeling of alertness and swiftness is further accentuated by
the drowsy attitudes of the three sleeping soldiers, one of whom half
awakes to see the vision pass. The fresco is cold in colour, blues and
stoney greys predominating, a faint light lies over the eastern sky,
but the scene is illuminated by the yellow rays which stream from the
Saviour’s own person. Its strength lies less in its colour than in its
draughtsmanship, and the suggestion of energy without violence.
In the Morelli Collection at Bergamo there is a fine drawing in red
chalk of this figure of the risen Lord.[43] It is evidently a study for
this fresco or for the panel of the same subject at Naples, possibly
the original study for both.
I have not been able to trace the history of the Naples pictures,
for whom it was painted, or how it got to Naples. At the beginning
of the last century it formed an altar-piece in the church of San
Tommaso there, and has since been removed to the Pinacoteca and hung
high up in a bad light. The composition is much the same as that of
the Siena fresco, but there is a difference of pose in the figures of
the two little angels who lean over the sarcophagus. The picture has
suffered from neglect, but was evidently never equal in beauty to the
Siena version. The soldiers are carelessly painted, completely out of
drawing, and the figure of Our Lord lacks the dignity which the artist
infused into the other. There is a cartellino with the inscription, IO
ANT. EQUES. VE (sic) AUCT. F.A. 1535.
In 1536 we find him engaged in another long and wearisome lawsuit,
this time with the brothers John and Arduino Arduini, rich Siennese
merchants who, several years before, had got him to paint an
altar-piece for a chapel belonging to them. This is the large
“Adoration of the Magi” which now hangs in the Piccolomini chapel of
St. Agostino. Apparently the brothers Arduini went back from the price
originally agreed upon. Sodoma employed one of the most brilliant
jurists of the age, Vannoccio Biringucci, to plead in his cause, but
the action was, notwithstanding, decided against the painter, and the
Arduini were absolved from further payment. But they were instructed
to restore to Sodoma, on receipt from him of seven scudi, a circular
panel with the Virgin, St. Elizabeth, and St. Joseph. This _tondo_
has unfortunately vanished, and must have been one of his earlier
productions.
To these years belong a really lovely panel in tempera washed over with
glaces of oil, by some regarded as his last work of merit. Its date is
uncertain; the warm, rich colouring, similar to that of his earlier
years, and the careful modelling of the Virgin’s face has induced
some critics to place it as early in his career as 1516-18. But Dr.
Frizzoni, who is perhaps the authority most profoundly acquainted with
Sodoma’s style, considers the looseness of its drawing and its want of
luminosity in the shadows as indicative of late work. The picture was
made for the altar of St. Calixtus in the cathedral, the last chapel
on the right hand side, and was framed with a carved stone moulding of
Renaissance design. In one of the restorations or re-adjustments
which were carried out in 1681 and 1704, it was taken away from the
cathedral and put up in the little chapel in the Palazzo Pubblico,
beside the frescoes of Bartolo di Fredi, and the carved choir-stalls.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_ _Palazzo Pubblico, Siena_
THE MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ST. LEONARD AND ST. JOSEPH]
Mancini says that Annibale Carracci could not tear himself away from
this painting, but remained riveted before it, entranced by its
poetic beauty and the charm of its landscape, which with the ruined
amphitheatre recalls the fact that Sodoma had been in Rome.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_ _Palazzo Pubblico, Siena_
THE MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH ST. JOHN]
In 1537 the _Signoria_ gave him another small commission, a fresco
above the door in the Sala dei Matrimoni. It was composed of a Madonna
and Child, infant St. John, and Saints Ansano and Galgano, but is out
of drawing, and the whole execution superficial. To this period of his
life most probably we should date the fresco of the “Ascension” in the
Collegiata of the Castello of Trequanda, and the altar-piece in the
Collegiata of Asina-Lunga, which has a Madonna enthroned, two saints
on either side, Sebastian and Anthony, Louis and Roch, and a little
kneeling St. John in the centre, as well as the “Madonna and Child”
of the Borghese Gallery, with the smiling Infant stretching out its
hand for the rose which St. Joseph offers it over the Virgin’s right
shoulder. This has a delightful landscape background, full of incident,
and the hands are painted with care.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_ _Villa Borghese, Rome_
THE HOLY FAMILY]
It would seem as if the tide of fortune had now turned against him.
His work had already begun to deteriorate in quality, and from this
time forth becomes more uniformly weak and vapid, and his inability to
apply himself for long together at the same subject, a drawback in his
youth, in his old age became a veritable stumbling-block. He does not
seem to have made any provision for his declining years.
In 1531, in response to some schedule for Income-Tax, he had drawn up
a would-be comic list[44] of his possessions. The excessive bad taste
of its jokes--the taste of the fifteenth century--strikes painfully
on the modern ear. This list mentions an orchard, or rather farm, at
Fonte Nuova, “which I till, and which others reap,” a house in the
Vallerozzi quarter and eight horses. The remaining items are apes,
crows, peacocks, owls, and “three evil beasts, which are three women.”
In 1534 he bought another house, but by 1537 both house and orchard
seem to have passed out of his hands. His daughter was married, and,
after the last coarse allusion, there is no further reference to his
wife. His brothers and sisters were probably dead or lost to view, and
Sodoma himself was sixty years of age.
One of his last works in Siena was the much damaged panel in the church
of the Carmine, representing the “Birth of the Virgin.” The grouping of
the figures and the drawing, especially of the woman in the foreground,
who holds the child, reminds one forcibly of Raphael. There are seven
persons in the picture, St. Anne in her bed, two women who bring her
food, and three who are attending the little new-born child. Joachim
peeps in upon the scene from behind the heavy curtain. In this painting
the light issues from three different points; from the fire in front,
which one does not see, but which casts its red glow upon the three
foreground figures; from the window behind St. Anne, and from the
night-lamp under the bed. It looks as if the artist had been trying an
experiment in some of those new effects of complex chiaro-oscuro, which
were evoking such admiration at Rome.
In the early spring of 1537 the _Signoria_, consisting of the Chamber
of Nobles and the Captain of the People, gave him his last commission,
the painting of the little open chapel or loggia standing out from the
façade of the Palazzo Pubblico.
On the 6th of March he was formally appointed to execute the work, and
agreed to have it finished by the Feast of St. Mary, in August.[45]
He was to paint a Madonna in the centre, flanked by the four patron
saints of the city, with the Eternal Father in the lunette above. He
was to provide his own materials--ultramarine included--and to be paid
for it the sum of sixty scudi, fifteen on commencing the work, fifteen
when half-way through, another fifteen when finished, and the final
fifteen only to be granted him if the fresco was completed by the
given date--a provision which shows us that the noble _Signoria_ was
already acquainted with his habits. On the 14th of March he was paid
the first fifteen scudi, but there are no more entries of payment,
and in the following year we find among the Archives published by
Milanesi, a correspondence between the rulers of Siena, Sodoma himself,
and the Prince of Piombino, with whom he was staying.[46] We have
already alluded to the painter’s introduction to this prince, and the
friendship which had sprung up between them.
It was now in his moment of declining strength, when he found his power
lessened and a group of younger men occupying that place in popular
favour which had once been his, that the friend of years came forward
and offered him a commission and the hospitality of his roof.
But the _Signoria_ grew more and more impatient at the delay, and,
tired of addressing peremptory letters to Sodoma himself which received
no or evasive replies, attacked the Prince himself.
“Most excellent and magnificent Lords,” he answered them, “there is no
doubt that the Cavalier Sogdona’s (sic) great wish to please me, and my
own satisfaction in watching him perfect the panel so long promised me,
has been the cause of the offence given to your excellent Lordships,
not only by the Cavalier, but also by me, as accomplice in the fault.
Whereas I, thinking it over and recognising myself to have been guilty,
principally because this delay of his has been to suit my convenience,
humbly confess that the obligation and the debt towards you have been
mine. And still more so since the Cavalier on his part defends the
error through his profession as an artist, who (as indeed often happens
to poets) is so driven and constrained by his inspiration, that, even
wishing to leave the work he has undertaken he is not able to do so.
And I, enchanted and led away by his skill, have taken a liberty with
your most excellent Lordships, in not urging him to go as soon as was
needed. But I am convinced that he presents himself to your service
with so much the greater fervour, that any delay will be more than
compensated by the value and excellence of his work. For this and for
your goodwill towards me your Excellencies will be pleased to receive
him graciously, (now that the cause of your indignation is removed)
and he deserves it, seeing his power. So that I recommended him to you
with all my heart, as a deserving man and personally dear to me. And as
always a good son and servant I present and recommend myself to you.
THE PRINCE OF PIOMBINO.
From Piombino the 13th _August_, 1537.”
So the old man came back to the city of his adoption, where he had
lived nearly forty years, and finished the fresco in the chapel of
her nobles. Then, as Vasari says, he betook himself to Volterra, and
painted for Messer Lorenzo di Galeotto dei Medici, a canvas with
Phaeton falling headlong from the chariot of the sun.
The picture itself has long since vanished. It was last heard of in a
list of pictures quoted by Della Valle in the seventeenth century, left
by a Siennese citizen to his son (_Lettere Senesi_, iii. 267).[47]
A pen and ink drawing for the myth of Phaeton is to be found in the
Uffizi collection, attributed to and even signed by Baldassare Peruzzi.
Recent criticism, however, has discovered this signature to be a
modern forgery, and the drawing is now believed to be by Sodoma. It is
not very likely, however, to bear any reference to this canvas referred
to by Vasari, as it is obviously a study for a ceiling decoration,
but is interesting as showing his treatment of this classical myth.
M. Destailleur, an architect at Paris, has in his possession another
drawing by Sodoma of this same subject. I have not had an opportunity
of examining it, but Frizzoni declares it to be similar in taste and
technique.
It may have been during this sojourn, that he repainted, for the
Franciscan monks of Volterra, the Child in Signorelli’s fine panel
of the “Circumcision,” now in our National Gallery. That this
interpolation of one artist’s work over that of another, is a
satisfactory method, one cannot maintain. The styles of the two masters
were so utterly different, and their aims in art so alien, that one can
but regret a vandalism of this kind which does justice to neither.
Several other small paintings in the Volterra churches have been
attributed to Sodoma, but apparently without good reason, and critics
of authority have rejected them as mere feeble copies, or the work of
scholars. Certainly, in many of the little Tuscan towns round about
Siena, exist oil paintings and fragments of frescoes which resemble, in
one or two characteristics, the work of this prolific master.
A pupil studying under him, or some unknown admirer of his style, might
easily become an imitator of his special mannerisms, and succeed in
approaching very closely to the level of his feebler work, as in the
case of Riccio, with his exceedingly beautiful little fresco which lies
upon the left wall of the collegiate church of Asciano.
Sodoma grew weary of staying at Volterra. He had been long accustomed
to a roving life, and to work or not as the fancy moved him. Perhaps,
kept as a dependant in the Volterra Castle, he too grew, like Dante, to
know:
“Come sa di sale,
Lo pane altrui, e com’ è duro calle
Lo scendere e il salir per l’ altrui scale.”[48]
So he wandered away to Pisa, where he had never been, and where he had
a friend in Messer Battista del Cervelliere, director of the Cathedral
Board of Works. This gentleman introduced him to Messer Bastiano della
Seta, chief architect of the cathedral, who was planning a series of
scenes from Scripture history, to be painted in the spaces above the
choir-stalls in the round apse. The paintings are in three tiers,
divided by marble mouldings and gilt and carved pilasters. Bastiano
della Seta gave him two really good commissions, a Pietà, immediately
behind the High Altar, and a well-composed group at the side, on the
lowest tier, representing the Sacrifice of Isaac.
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_ _Cathedral, Pisa_
THE SACRIFICE OF ISAAC]
“But,” says Vasari, waxing sententious over the supposed failure of
these works, “Since these pictures did not succeed very well, the said
master-workman, who had intended to order from him several panels for
the church, dismissed him, well knowing that men who do not study, lose
in their old age those qualities which they had naturally in youth,
and are left with a style and technique often but little to be praised.
“At the same time Giovanni Antonio completed a panel in oil which he
had begun for Sta. Maria della Spina, making the Madonna with her
Son in her arms, and kneeling before her St. Mary Magdalen and St.
Catharine, and St. John, St. Sebastian, and St. Joseph standing at the
sides, in all of which figures he succeeded much better than in those
in the cathedral.”[49]
[Illustration:
_Alinari photo_ _Museo Civico, Pisa_
THE MADONNA AND CHILD, WITH SAINTS]
The two former are still in their place in the cathedral choir. The
enthroned Madonna, with the six saints has been taken away from Sta.
Maria della Spina, and hung in one of the side rooms of the Pisan
Gallery. Vasari continues: “After this, having nothing more to do at
Pisa, he went to Lucca; where, in St. Ponziano, a spot belonging to the
brothers of Monte Oliveto, an abbot, who was a friend of his, made him
paint a Madonna on the stairs going up to the dormitory.
“When he had finished this, weary, poor, and old, he went back to
Siena, where he did not live long, since, being ill, and having nobody
to take care of him, and nothing to live upon, he went to the great
hospital, and there, in the course of a few weeks, he ended his life.”
Signor Ettore Romagnuoli discovered among the archives a letter which
conclusively proves the date of the painter’s death to have been on the
14th of February 1549.
This letter was written by one, Ser Alessandro Buoninsegni, to his
brother, Bernardino, Ambassador at Naples, on the fifteenth of
February, and states, “The Cavalier Sodoma died last night.”[50]
But the writer does not mention _where_ he died, and we have only
Vasari’s authority for the lonely end in the hospital, such as any
pauper might have known.