he
Piazza at Siena. For the rest, 'he attired himself in pompous
clothes, wearing doublets of brocade, cloaks trimmed with gold lace,
gorgeous caps, neck-chains, and other vanities of a like
description, fit for buffoons and mountebanks.' In one of the
frescoes of Monte Oliveto, Sodoma painted his own portrait, with
some of his curious pets around him. He there appears as a young man
with large and decidedly handsome features, a great shock of dark
curled hair escaping from a yellow cap, and flowing down over a rich
mantle which drapes his shoulders. If we may trust Vasari, he showed
his curious humours freely to the monks. 'Nobody could describe the
amusement he furnished to those good fathers, who christened him
Mattaccio (the big madman), or the insane tricks he played there.'

In spite of Vasari's malevolence, the portrait he has given us of
Bazzi has so far nothing unpleasant about it. The man seems to have
been a madcap artist, combining with his love for his profession a
taste for fine clothes, and what was then perhaps rarer in people of
his sort, a great partiality for living creatures of all kinds. The
darker shades of Vasari's picture have been purposely omitted from
these pages. We only know for certain, about Bazzi's private life,
that he was married in 1510 to a certain Beatrice, who bore him two
children, and who was still living with him in 1541. The further
suggestion that he painted at Monte Oliveto subjects unworthy of a
religious house, is wholly disproved by the frescoes which still
exist in a state of very tolerable preservation. They represent
various episodes in the legend of S. Benedict; all marked by that
spirit of simple, almost childish piety which is a special
characteristic of Italian religious history. The series forms, in
fact, a painted _novella_ of monastic life; its petty jealousies,
its petty trials, its tribulations and temptations, and its
indescribably petty miracles. Bazzi was well fitted for the
execution of this task. He had a swift and facile brush,
considerable versatility in the treatment of monotonous subjects,
and a never-failing sense of humour. His white-cowled monks, some of
them with the rosy freshness of boys, some with the handsome brown
faces of middle life, others astute and crafty, others again
wrinkled with old age, have clearly been copied from real models. He
puts them into action without the slightest effort, and surrounds
them with landscapes, architecture,