, who had done
him that affront, wherefore, having set to work in order to make
himself known to the new Pontiff, he painted in a picture the Roman
Lucrece, nude, who was stabbing herself with a dagger; and, since
Fortune takes care of madmen and sometimes aids the thoughtless, he
succeeded in executing a most beautiful female body, and a head that
was breathing. Which work finished, at the instance of Agostino Chigi,
who was on terms of strait service with the Pope, he presented it to
his Holiness, by whom he was made a Chevalier and rewarded for so
beautiful a picture. Whereupon Giovanni Antonio, believing that he had
become a great man, began to be disinclined to work any more, save
when he was driven by necessity. But, after Agostino had gone on some
business to Siena, taking Giovanni Antonio with him, while staying
there he was forced, being a Chevalier without an income, to set
himself to painting; and so he painted an altar-piece containing a
Christ taken down from the Cross, on the ground Our Lady in a swoon,
and a man in armour who, having his back turned, shows his front
reflected in a helmet that is on the ground, bright as a mirror. This
work, which was held to be, as it is, one of the best that he ever
executed, was placed in S. Francesco, on the right hand as one enters
the church. Then in the cloister that is beside the above-named
church, he painted in fresco Christ scourged at the Column, with many
Jews around Pilate, and with a range of columns drawn in perspective
after the manner of wing-walls; in which work Giovanni Antonio made a
portrait of himself without any beard--that is, shaven--and with the
hair long, as it was worn at that time.

Not long afterwards he executed some pictures for Signor Jacopo VI of
Piombino, and, while living with him at that place, some other works
on canvas. Wherefore by his means, besides many courtesies and
presents that he received from him, Giovanni Antonio obtained from his
island of Elba many little animals such as that island produces, all
of which he took to Siena.

[Illustration: S. SEBASTIAN

(_After the painting by =Giovanni Antonio [Il Sodoma]=. Florence:
Uffizi, 1279_)

_Anderson_]

Arriving next in Florence, a monk of the Brandolini family, Abbot of
the Monastery of Monte Oliveto, which is without the Porta a S.
Friano, caused him to paint some pictures in fresco on the wall of the
refectory; but since, like a careless fellow, he did them without
stu