Sodoma

Sodoma by contessa Lilian Priuli-Bon is an art-historical monograph written in the early 20th century. It presents the life, career, and style of the Renaissance painter Giovanni Antonio Bazzi (called Sodoma), reassessing his reputation and situating his major works in Siena and Rome within their patrons, workshops, and influences. The study blends biography, critical analysis, and a catalogue of works to trace his development from Lombard training to Sienese success and Roman commissions.

The opening of the book sketches Sodoma’s place among Renaissance masters, noting Vasari’s bias and the corrective evidence later scholars drew from archives, before recounting his origins in Vercelli, probable birth window, and apprenticeship to Martino Spanzotti. It follows his move to Siena around the turn of the century, his early panels and tondi, and his breakthrough with the Monte Oliveto fresco cycle, where his broader manner, love of animals, and self-portrait emerge alongside issues of composition and restrained color. The narrative then turns to Rome with Agostino Chigi: Sodoma’s ceiling and grisaille panels in the Camera della Segnatura (preserved by Raphael) and the Farnesina scenes of Alexander and Roxana, set against ongoing debates over drawings and attributions. Returning to Tuscany, it highlights the Last Supper near Florence, the powerful Christ Bound to the Column in Siena, the San Bernardino frescoes, the Adoration of the Magi, and the luminous St. George panel for Ferrara, before noting a murky travel period (Mantua, Ferrara, Reggio, likely Lombardy) and his reappearance in Siena in 1525 with the confraternity standard of St. Sebastian—establishing the main themes of his style, patrons, and evolving critical standing.