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Updated: June 20, 2025
The decoration of the ceiling had already been begun by Sodoma, and Sodoma's decorative framework Raphael allowed to remain; partly, perhaps, from courtesy, more probably because its general disposition was admirable and not to be improved on. If Sodoma had begun any of the larger paintings which were to fill his frames they were removed to make way for the new work.
What of the time I kindled such a flame of lust over all the world that the deluge had needs be sent to clear the earth of men, and to sweep them all into our unquenchable fire? What of Sodoma and Gomorrah, fine and fair cities, which I so consumed with licentiousness that a hell-shower blazed in their infernal lusts and beat them down here alive, to burn for ages on ages.
The only painter who approaches Luini in what may be called the Lombard, to distinguish it from the Venetian idyl, is Sodoma; and the work of his which comes nearest to Luini's masterpieces is the legend of St. Benedict, at Monte Oliveto, near Siena. Yet Sodoma had not all Luini's innocence or naïveté.
In this work, which is much extolled by craftsmen, Domenico began to show to those who had some understanding that his works were painted with a different foundation from those of Sodoma. He then painted in fresco, in the Great Hospital, the Madonna visiting S. Elizabeth, in a manner very pleasing and very natural.
And this Sodoma, being an eccentric, and wishing to please the common herd, always kept at his house parrots, apes, dwarf donkeys, little Elba horses, a talking raven, barbs for running races, and other suchlike creatures; from which he had won such a name among the vulgar, that they spoke of nothing but his follies.
With regard to Sodoma, I remember seeing four years ago in the choir of the Cathedral of Pisa a certain small dusky specimen of the painter an Abraham and Isaac, if I am not mistaken which was charged with a gloomy grace. One rarely meets him in general collections, and I had never done so till the other day.
Of the patient successive efforts of painting to arrive at the supreme refinement of such a work as the Sodoma the Campo Santo hard by offers a most interesting memorial. It presents a long, blank marble wall to the relative profaneness of the Cathedral close, but within it is a perfect treasure-house of art.
Fra Angelico and Ghirlandaio said all their feebler <i>confreres</i> dreamt of and a great deal more beside, but the inspiration of Simone Memmi and Ambrogio Lorenzetti and Sano di Pietro has a painful air of never efflorescing into a maximum. Sodoma and Beccafumi are to my taste a rather abortive maximum.
There are some fine old halls and chapels, adorned with ancient frescos and pictures, of which I remember a picture of the Virgin by Sodoma, very beautiful, and other fine pictures by the same master. The architecture of these old rooms is grand, the roofs being supported by ponderous arches, which are covered with frescos, still magnificent, though faded, darkened, and defaced.
Sodoma was so singular a fellow, even in that age of piquant personalities, that it may be worth while to translate a fragment of Vasari's gossip about him. We must, however, bear in mind that, for some unknown reason, the Aretine historian bore a rancorous grudge against this Lombard, whose splendid gifts and great achievements he did all he could by writing to depreciate.
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